Customer Reviews

Tejas

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

This is not going to be a regular review for me. I finally picked up a bunch of old ZZ Top on CD, and I wanted to join the chorus of moaners about the remixes.

Unlike some, I never hated ZZ Top's style and sound that began with 1981's El Loco. It was an interesting change for the band that helped them sell records and keep their career going in a very different climate for pop music. They still had plenty of good songs in that era.

However, I always much preferred their style and sound from ZZ Top's First Album through Deguello. And Tejas is probably my favorite of the bunch.

I'm a musician, and one of the instruments I play is drums. One thing that I did dislike about the band beginning with El Loco is that in conformity with pop of the time, drummer Frank Beard started simplifying his grooves so that after awhile, it seemed like all he could play any longer was a very basic "four on the floor beat".

One of the reasons I always loved Tejas was for its inspired drumming. Beard, incredible on all of the 70s albums, played some amazing, very subtle, unique, and relatively complex stuff on Tejas, all with a very soulful, kinda-funky-in-a-white-Texan-blues-rock-sort-a-way groove.

Well, the remix basically destroys all of Beard's beautiful work on this album. I know that people have said it was only a matter of effects being added, but I'd swear that some parts have been re-recorded, or at least parts of the drum track were used to trigger modern sounding samples to emphasize a "four on the floor" feel. This was one of my favorite drum records of all time. When I put the disc in the player and heard the opening of "It's Only Love", I quickly stopped it, took the disc out to check it, and figured that the record company must have made a mistake and put the wrong music on the disc. I only realized what happened after I gave it another listen and heard the rest of the band start.

And it's not just the drums. Guitar parts have been changed in various places, too. The original parts and sound of the album are fairly well burned into my brain--in the 1970s, this was one of the records I most frequently practiced drums with.

And it's not just this album. All of the 70s albums have been tampered with in this way.

ZZ Top, please restore this album, and your other 1970s albums, to their original recordings and mixes. Thousands of fans who have stuck with you for over 35 years now are eagerly waiting to buy the music they love and remember.

Tejas, released originally on vinyl in 1976 or 77 is ZZTop's best album. It is the one that established them as musicians and not just three guys trying to blow up amps... although their simultaneous detonation of "Backdoor Love Affair" on the live size of Fandango is among my top 2 or 3 openings in all of rock and roll. Tejas was a brilliant, dry, gritty album with some great hits - "It's Only Love" (does anyone besides me get flashbacks to "Brown Sugar" listening to this?), "Driving While Blind"... one of the best singalongs ever "She's a Heartbreaker", and the tight chording on "Pan Am Highway Blues". Unfortunately, Bill Ham remixed the first six ZZ Top albums for CD before anyone caught on that great things don't need to be re-invented. The CD version of Tejas is the worst CD re-mix ever, out of over 600 in my collection. It basically sounds as if the whole album has been recut with a drum machine (a bad one too) and fed through an echo box. It's nothing but an insult. At the time, one of the audio magazines reviewed it (after I already bought it) and declared it the worst CD remix of the year. Nice to see no one was listening. I suppose the other ZZTop six-pack remixes are just as bad, but Tejas was my favorite album so it stands out. I bought the sixpack 10 years ago, and from reading the other reviews, Tejas still hasn't been fixed. I should mention that the LIVE half of Fandango has not received the drum machine treatment, making 1/12 of the sixpack the saving grace. It has been 10 years, please you guys, re-mix this album like the original, so I can use this one for target practice.

This is ZZ Tops best album.I loved this on vinyl for over 20 years.When I finally got rid of my record collection I bought this on CD and the remix,particularly the drum parts make me ill.Another problem on my copy which I haven't heard anyone else mention is that the first two words of"arrested for driving while blind"are missing as if they were omitted.It has been so unpleasant not being able to listen to one of my all time favorite albums as much as I would like.

As part of an attempt to capitalize on the success of their Eliminator sound, ZZ Top decided to go back into the studio and remix and also re-record parts of their first 6 albums thinking it would make them more money and entice fans of their newer sound to go back and buy their earlier records. Well guess what, in the process their older fans who were used to the original versions on the old cassettes and albums were shocked when they listened to any of these first generation CD releases. They heard bogus reverbed drums, and entire sections of both music and vocals re-recorded. Talk about tarnishing the legacy of a great band's output. Well someone finally wised up and now at least Tres Hombres and Fandango are now available in original mix, remastered form. So stay away from this trash and wait for the entire back catalog to be released in it's original mix, remastered form on CD.

I was just as disappointed and appalled as other reviewers with the re-mixing of this great album for the CD version. I actually bought the ZZ Top Six-Pack CD, which includes their first 6 recordings, all of which were re-mixed with a 1980's drum sound. I went to Amazon in search of the individual Tejas CD, hoping I would find that it was cut from the original. Thanks to all of the reviewers that saved me from buying another version of the crappy recording that I already own. Your opinions are right on-- this CD, as all of the ones on the Six-Pack, needs to be re-cut using the ORIGINAL mix. Then I would rate it with 5 Stars.

When this album was remastered, the original drum tracks were altered to coincide with the band's more recent sound on albums like Eliminator, etc. What a tragedy! This was a great album and should be reissued in its original form. I am only grateful I still have a turntable and can play the original. I threw the cd out. I could not get past the altered drum tracks. I cannot believe the band chose to "revise" the album. I hope that it is eventually put out on cd as it was originally meant to be heard. Nothing on the packaging even warns you that it is not in the original form. Dishonest and disappointing is all I can say.

Remastering isn't always good.
I bought this album on vinyl right after it was originally released. Twenty-some years and hundreds of listens later, I broke down and bought the CD. Oops. Whose idea was it to get creative with the drum tracks? On vinyl, Frank Hill's drums sound as tasteful as always, particularly that nice hollow, gritty snare drum. On some of the cuts on the CD, the drum track has been reverbed, effected, and pulled up front so far that poor Mr. Hill sounds like a bad drum machine in my disco nightmare. On other cuts (e.g., "Driving While Blind"), completely different and notably inferior drum tracks have been substituted for the originals.
Still a fine, fine album, but the remastering didn't do it any favors. I'm disappointed. The original gets five stars.

IN REFERANCE TO THE BAD REVIEWS FOR THE NEW RE-MIX I MUST AGREE. HOWEVER I AM REVIEWING THE OLD VERSION STILL AVAILABLE. THIS IS BLUES-ROCK AT ITS BEST. BILLY GIBBONS IS A TRUE TALENT AT GUITAR. "ASLEEP IN THE DESSERT" IS A GREAT INSTRUMENTAL & "ARRESTED" IS ZZ AT ITS TOP. I FOUND CASSETTES OF THIS & THE OTHER EARLY ZZ TOP RELEASES AT MY LOCAL 24 HOUR SUPER-STORE FOR FIVE BUCKS EACH. GREAT DRIVING MUSIC.

In Short, Tejas was my favorite zz album for many years, and still is. "Album" is the key word here. An amazing album full of great songs with plenty of raw feelings. The CD, however, is horribly mixed, overproduced, and sounds like it was EQ'd in a tiled shower. A perfect example of technology trying to fix something that wasn't broken. If you've never heard the vinyl version, you'll more than likely enjoy the cd. I'll just have to stock up on turntable stylus' until they decide to do this right.

I'm a total ZZ freak, so I am biased, but I have to say, as others have said, this is the one I keep coming back to. I love it.

Twangy countryfied tones and lyrics, fuzzy blues, and the omnipresent funk. Truly a countryfied, rockin', funky concept/experimental album. Tejas is the ZZ equivalent of Yes' most abstract and compelling oeuvre, whatever that would be.

Billy's famous for his partiality to a certain '59 Les Paul, but my ears tell me he favored his hard-tail strat for this album. Gorgeous Strat tones everywhere, as well as pedal steel. Billy gets pretty textural too.

Guitar Player magazine picked it as one of the 50 best albums of all time, and I would agree. So many fantastic songs!

The great thing about ZZ is that it's not just about the guitar, but great, funky songs. So put the disc in the changer, turn the CB radio off, ease the hydraulic seat of your 18-wheeler back, move into the slow lane, and enjoy the Tejas scenery. You'll be to Houston in no time...