ZZ Top to get living legend award

ZZ Top has been named the recipient of a lifetime achievement honor from a concert industry trade group. The International Entertainment Buyer's Association (IEBA) will give ZZ Top the Living Legend Award at the organization's annual conference in Nashville in October. In its citation, the IEBA said, "No one does it better -- or has done it longer -- than this 'little ol' band from Texas'... From the beginning they took a hard-rocking power-trio approach to the blues, cultivating a new audience for it in the '70s and '80s with superior musicianship as well as attitude, style, and some devilishly funny songs. The genius of ZZ Top is that they're reverential about the blues, but loose and funny about the subject matter of their songs. Their songs are laden with pop-culture references, sexual double entendres, and the determined pursuit of a good time... For many, ZZ Top have been the premiere party band on the planet. Certainly, they have been Texas's foremost cultural ambassadors."

Singer-guitarist Reverend Billy F. Gibbons told us that the members of ZZ Top have never forgotten where they came from musically: "Take, you know, all the obvious influences -- all the blues, and we could name Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf, and Jimmy Reed, and even Rolling Stones, Cream, that whole thing -- you put it all together, and you got a big handful of what we all love. 'Course, then we twisted it into something undefinable, but it still keeps us where we're real comfortable being."

The band is working on a new studio album, but there's no word on how far they've gotten with it, or when it might come out.
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