“Sharp Dressed Man” — ZZ Top
There’s no better soundtrack for driving down the motorway on a crisp, sunny early winter’s morning than ZZ Top. So imagine my delight when, after a particularly early start the other day, the distinctive intro for “Sharp Dressed Man” came on the radio.
I’ve always been a big ZZ Top fan and consider them one of the most underrated groups of musicians you’re ever likely to come across.
Some of that is probably because back in the 1980s they came to the attention of the MTV generation by releasing a series of videos which tended to involve attractive, scantily dressed ladies behaving provocatively.
It was no worse…in fact probably several orders of magnitude more respectful…than a modern rap video, but back in 1983 when “Sharp Dressed Man”, “Legs” and “Gimme All Your Loving” came out, some people were scandalised.
“Sharp Dressed Man”, along with “Legs” and “Gimme All Your Loving”, was one of the tracks on ZZ Top’s 1983 “Eliminator” album. Together, the band’s peerless musicianship, the aforementioned music videos and the distinctive customised Ford Coupe used on the album cover and in the music videos proved irresistible to the record-buying public.
“Eliminator” was a huge commercial success, selling over 10 million copies in the US and going platinum and multi-platinum around the world. And a…
