Usually it’s a chorus, an individual performance or even a title that bestows immortality upon a particular song or track. In the case of ZZ Top’s La Grange, it was Billy Gibbons’s lascivious cry of “Have mercy!” followed by a deep a growl of “a how how how how”, delivered over a gently picked riff saucy enough to flavour a thousand barbecues, that handed the Texan trio their first significant hit; a track that has now racked up more than 170 million YouTube plays.
Now a well-aged 50 years old, La Grange first appeared on ZZ Top’s 1973 third album, Tres Hombres. The song celebrated a real-life brothel known as The Chicken Ranch, open from 1905 to 1973 and located on the outskirts of the Texan town after which the song was named. The Chicken Ranch went on to become the subject of a book called The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, which was later made into a film (starring Dolly Parton).
