Remiss

Forgive me, loyal readers, I have been remiss. In this week of anniversaries, I missed a significant one. Forty years ago yesterday, that Little Ole Band from Texas, otherwise known as ZZ Top, released its third album, Tres Hombres. This was a career-defining album for the group, a wicked blues/rock fusion that became a top 10 hit and launched them to stardom. More germane to our purposes, the lead (and only) single from the album, "La Grange," took a classic John Lee Hooker blues riff and wrapped it with growling lyrics about a certain famed brothel on the outskirts of town. It's a little-known fact that "La Grange" was release--and garnered extensive airplay--well before the album came out. Which means all of America (or at least those tuned to FM rock stations) was listening to "La Grange" in late June and all of July, well before Marvin Zindler launched his TV crusade against the Chicken Ranch. That's why the Chicken Ranch wasn't the worst-kept secret in Texas--to be a secret (even a worst-kept one) people at least have to pretend it's a secret in the first place.

As far as the album is concerned, Radio.com has a nice little writeup about it with comments from Billy Gibbons.

And as tomorrow's major milestone continues rushing at us in breakneck pace, folks here and there are starting to take notice. The Fayette County Record has two stories on the Chicken Ranch in this week's edition, which is worth noting. The stories aren't available for reading online without a subscription, but if you're passing through Fayette County this week, it might be worthwhile to stop in at Hruska's in Ellinger and gab a couple of kolaches to go with a copy of the paper.

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