Perfectamundo Billy Gibbons And The BFG's

• 1 Got Love If You Want It 04:18
• 2 Treat Her Right 02:24
• 3 You're What's Happenin', Baby 06:07
• 4 Sal Y Pimiento 03:13
• 5 Pickin' Up Chicks On Dowling Street 04:12
• 6 Hombre Sin Nombre 03:50
• 7 Quiero Mas Dinero 03:27
• 8 Baby Please Don't Go 02:31
• 9 Piedras Negras 03:09
• 10 Perfectamundo 02:44
• 11 Q-Vo 03:24
• Total Runtime 39:19

Info for Perfectamundo

It’s the debut solo album from Billy Gibbons, ZZ Top guitarist/vocalist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, who is backed by a handpicked group of musicians dubbed The BFG’s on this unique outing. As the title may suggest, the album takes on a bit of an Afro-Cuban flavor that may come as a surprise to some Gibbons fans and followers.

Even before the blues-rock/hard-rock great’s first recordings back in 1967 with the Moving Sidewalks, his legendary pre-ZZ Top Houston psyche-punk garage band, Gibbons studied Latin percussion in Manhattan with none other than its preeminent virtuoso, “Mambo King” Tito Puente, a friend of Billy’s bandleader dad. Puente taught the young Gibbons the essential Latin rhythms via conga, bongo, maracas and, most importantly, timbales. “Banging away on ‘em came back like riding on a lost bicycle,” Gibbons relates of his return to the genre by way of Perfectamundo.

But the concept for Perfectamundo, which was produced by Gibbons and Joe Hardy and recorded in Houston, Los Angeles, Austin and Pontevedra, Spain, originated with Gibbons’ invitation to perform at the 2014 Havana Jazz Festival, delivered by his Argentine-born, Puerto Rico-raised friend and musical collaborator Martin Guigui. While he was unable to make it to Cuba, Billy did commence exploring the potential for an Afro-Cuban inflected album project at his Houston studio. Soon after presenting his engineering crew with a business card from a newly opened Cuban eatery called Sal Y Pimienta (salt and pepper), the first track finished for Perfectamundo took its title from that card.

He followed this with a “Spanglish” version of Louisiana swamp blues maestro Slim Harpo’s classic “Got Love If You Want It” and an Afro-Cubanized take on the Lightnin’ Hopkins blues staple “Baby Please Don’t Go,” thereby fully merging Gibbons innate Houston blues tradition with Cuban rhythms. With the first three tracks ready to go, he sought further guidance from Guigui as well as Chino Pons, a Cuban friend who heads his own quartet in New York. “Chino, so to speak, sprinkled holy water on our efforts and expressed confidence that we were headed in the right direction—and that bit of affirmation gave us the impetus for more forward motion,” says Gibbons.

BFG & Co., then, includes Guigui on piano and B3, B3 player Mike Flanigan (who has joined with Guigui in backing Gibbons on recent solo dates), vocalist/bassist Alex Garza and drummer Greg Morrow, with co-producer Hardy offering additional guitar, keys, bass and vocals, and Gary Moon also supplying additional guitar play. Besides guitar and vocals, Gibbons himself contributes bass guitar, B3 and piano parts as well as Timbales and other percussion instruments. Chino appears, too, as part of the seasoned Cubano Nationale Beat Generator percussion ensemble. Altogether, the group displays a rare understanding of Cuban music of the pre-revolution 1950s, and is also learned in the rock and metal exemplified by the likes of ZZ Top and Led Zeppelin—all of which is uniquely reflected in Perfectamundo.

There’s even some hip-hop courtesy of Houston’s Garza, a/k/a Alx Guitarzza, which surfaces on the title track, “You’re What's Happenin’, Baby” and “Quiero Mas Dinero.” Other standout cuts include “Pickin’ Up Chicks on Dowling Street,” which is pure Billy Gibbons; the mysterious “Hombre Sin Nombre,” the hard rock “Piedras Negras,” and the smoking B3-stoked, almost instrumental album closer “Q-Vo.” And Gibbons turns to a Houston classic of another sort in his simmering and slyly percussive cover of Roy Head’s horns-fueled 1965 hit “Treat Her Right.”

Billy Gibbons
With his signature beard and African headgear Billy F Gibbons is instantly recognizable. He’s best known as the centerpiece and one third of ZZ Top, the band that came together in 1969 and has stayed part of the American musical landscape ever since, the longest running major rock band still composed of its original members. Billy and bandmates, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, most appropriately, by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, a longtime friend of Billy’s.

A legendary master of the six-string, Gibbons is widely regarded as one of America’s finest guitarists working in the blues rock idiom. ZZ Top’s sound owes much to his uncanny knack to squeeze unheard of sounds of the electric guitar that resonate with the blues, pop, r&b, country, gospel, western, hillbilly and West African influences that coalesced when rock ‘n roll was born. His almost subconscious awareness of this heritage makes his an approach that is, at once, innovative and authentic. As a vocalist, his down ‘n dirty growl is unmistakable; he sounds ominous and mirthful at the same time as listeners to such hits as “La Grange,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” and “Cheap Sunglasses” can attest.

Before ZZ Top, who would go on to become an acknowledged symbol of the State of Texas, Billy fronted several bands during his formative years growing up in Houston and soon became a local phenomenon. The Moving Sidewalks was his psychedelic pre-ZZ Top group and had occasion to open for Jimi Hendrix who was so taken with young Gibbons’ fretwork that he called it to the attention of Dick Cavett on national TV.

Now, as then, Billy Gibbons is much more than an iconic guitar slinger with a monumental length of chin whiskers. He’s a internationally recognized collector of guitars and cars, a fact chronicled in the best selling book he wrote about his collecting obsessions, Rock + Roll Gearhead which was published by MBI Publishing.

His guitar collection today numbers more than 800 instruments and includes the “Muddywood,” constructed from fallen timbers from Muddy Waters’ childhood home, the famous “Furry One,” as seem the “Legs” video and his most cherished guitar – “Pearly Gates,” a Les Paul Gibson he values above all others.

The cars he’s commissioned over the years have become stars in their own right: Eliminator, CadZZilla, Kopperhead and others have been major attractions on the car show circuit and have been seen in numerous videos. They are works of art, literal museum pieces. In fact, at this writing, Eliminator is on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and CadZZilla, Coupe de Grace, Slampla and HogZZilla are part of the Petersen Automotive Museum’s current Cars & Guitars of Rock ‘n Roll exhibition in Los Angeles for which he served as Creative Consultant. Beyond guitars and cars, Gibbons has a renowned collection of African art and an abiding interest in both the paranormal and cutting edge technology.

Beyond his work with ZZ Top, he’s recorded with such notable artists as B.B. King, Les Paul, Queens of the Stone Age, Nickelback, Kid Rock, Johnny Winter, John Mayall and others.

On November 6, 2015, Concord Records is releasing Perfectamundo, the debut solo album from Gibbons, who is backed by a handpicked group of musicians dubbed The BFG’s. As the title may suggest, the recording takes on a bit of an Afro-Cuban flavor that may come as a surprise to some Gibbons fans and followers. The concept for Perfectamundo, which was produced by Gibbons and Joe Hardy and recorded in Houston, Los Angeles, Austin and Pontevedra, Spain, originated with Gibbons’ invitation to perform at the 2014 Havana Jazz Festival.

A musician’s musician, Billy F Gibbons is a wellspring of what he likes to refer to as the “three T’s”: tone, taste and tenacity. His transcendent creativity in a broad variety of artistic and intellectual endeavors has stood him in good stead over the years underscoring his undisputed status as music’s most highly regarded Renaissance man.

This album contains no booklet.