Among the original British invasion’s first wave, Keith Richards always felt connected to America’s musical foundations on the deepest level.
The US songbook of the 1950s inspired the whole cohort who first broke the States early in the decade. The Beatles and The Kinks had all been struck by rock and roll’s lightning bolt as teens, cutting their teeth live and smattering their early records with covers from the likes of Chuck Berry or The Isley Brothers.
The Rolling Stones, however, harnessed the soul of the blues and R&B with an authenticity far beyond their years. Such love was a joint effort. While the band’s founder and initial chief Brian Jones was the blues purist, frontman Mick Jagger and Richards were lost in the early records from Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters—indeed, the later Glimmer Twins sparked their adult friendship when Richards spotted his old primary school friend Jagger with the Chicago blues pioneer’s record tucked under his arm back in 1961.
While not The Stones’ birth as the blue plaque erroneously suggests on Dartford Station’s platform two, rock history was certainly forged as the two hit it off over a love of blues and rock and roll. Before long, The Beatles would turn America on its head with their 1964 debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, the UK would conquer the Billboard charts, and the British Invasion would prove instrumental in scoring the decade’s tumultuous counterculture into the 1970s. The Stones were essential in paving that path.
During their golden album run from 1968’s Beggars Banquet, The Stones mined the rich American tradition of country and blues, finally in their roots rock element after a brief wobble dallying with psychedelia for 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request. As the 1970s rolled along, the tussle between Jagger’s ear to the ground to pop’s evolving trends and Richards’ earthy veneration for music’s bedrock DNA would form an essential creative tug of war between the old comrades, as well as exacerbate growing tensions into the 1980s.
Such a connection with America’s boogie rock traditions created a sincere fandom for Texan hard rockers ZZ Top. Having opened for The Stones at odd points over the years, Billy Gibbons’ rustic and rural guitar style, wrapped together ZZ Top’s uniquely Southern sense of humour, had earned major stripes from The Stones’ riff conjurer, resulting in Richards enthusiastically inducting the ‘La Grange’ trio to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004: “This is the heartbeat of the whole country of the rock and roll. This is roots, these cats know they’re blues and they know how to dress it up.”
Rather than causing fractious clashes as The Stones had, ZZ Top married their anchorage to Texas hard rock with an unabashed embrace of new wave sheen, smattering 1980s chart monsters Eliminator and Afterburner with glossy pop synths that, coupled with their iconic look and glitzy promo videos, turned the trio into unlikely MTV stars.
Still, for their fanbase, ZZ Top will always stand as the original Tres Hombres ‘shit kickers’, garnering respect from some of rock’s biggest and most pioneering names, including The Stones’ immortal guitarist.