That Little Ol' Band From Texas released their second album, Rio Grande Mud, today in 1972. ZZ Top was a decade away from superstardom but only a year removed from their first record, the creatively titled ZZ Top's First Album. 

Many bands are greater than the sum of their parts but ZZ Top is a band full of musicians that I believe have never fully received the recognition they should as individuals. The beards, the moves, and the mystique has overshadowed what is a spectacular collection of individual musicians. Granted, there's only three of them (this isn't Arcade Fire), but each is bad ass in his own right.

With Frank Beard on drums and Dusty Hill on bass, the band had the ability to switch from emotive blues classics to hard charging rock numbers on a dime. Toss in arguably the most underrated guitarist of the 1970s, Billy Gibbons, and you have a recipe for success.

That recipe was still being tweaked on Rio Grande Mud but ZZ Top was rounding into form. The album contained only one single, the poorly charting Francine, but the foundation of what we now know as ZZ Top was being laid.

Track two, Just Got Paid, became a working man's anthem while Sure Got Cold After the Rain Fell became a modern blues classic. It wouldn't be until their next album, Tres Hombres, that every piece clicked together but Rio Grande Mud is a helluva fun stepping stone.

Anyone else recognize Funkadelic's Red Hot Mama in this jam?