09LA GRANGE ZZ TOP

(1973)

The little finger is the key, says Billy G…

The Texan trio’s hit album Treshombres featured this perennial tune. Lagrange was inspired by Edna’s Fashionable Ranch Boarding House, a brothel on the outskirts of that titular Texas town. For the suitably lowdown ’n’ dirty riff, Billy Gibbons took a hoary, John Lee Hooker-style

BIII- I- IV vamp in A (A-C-D), and poured his trademark tone all over it. “That’s a 1955 Fender Strat,” Gibbons tells TG, “maple neck with a hardtail [fixed bridge], running through a 2x10 Fender Tremolux

– a little blonde piggyback amp that happened to be in the studio at the time. The riff’s in the key of A, but don’t forget to use the little finger on the G string [C note, 5th fret] and pull it slightly up to pitch.” Bend that up just shy of C# to get yourself some of the song’s bluesy, raunchy feel...