Watch Billy Gibbons’ Lyric Video for ‘Standing Around Crying': Exclusive Premiere
Billy Gibbons has given us another taste of his upcoming album, The Big Bad Blues.
You can watch the lyric video for "Standing Around Crying" below. The Muddy Waters cover is an exclusive premiere.
"When we decided that our next solo album would focus on the blues ... make that The Big Bad Blues, we felt it was absolutely necessary to join with a Muddy Waters influence because if he hadn’t left Stovall’s Plantation and moved to Chicago where he ‘discovered electricity,’ we’d be living in a very different world," Gibbons tells UCR.
"He first recorded 'Standing Around Crying' in 1952 and Chess released it first on 78 RPM so that’s really going a ways back. The song is, on a certain level, a bridge between the rural blues of his early days in the Mississippi Delta and the electric blues of his Chicago reign. James Harmon, in tribute to the original, did a great job channeling Junior Wells' harmonica tone as this was recorded just as Little Walter left Muddy’s band and Junior came in to replace him for a short time."
"The cadence of the song brought to mind the rhythm of choppin’ that wood so we searched for that vintage lumberjack footage for the lyric video," Gibbons continues. "Of course, we have our respective 'axes' in common so there’s that. It’s the blues in a forest of green, rendered, of course, in black and white."
The first song released from The Big Bad Blues -- the follow-up to 2015's Cuban-influenced Perfectamundo -- was another Muddy Waters remake, "Rollin' and Tumblin'." The album returns to the sound on which Gibbons made his name in ZZ Top. “We successfully made our way through those uncharted waters with the Cubano flavor of Perfectamundo and completed the journey,” he said. “The shift back to the blues is a natural. It’s something which our followers can enjoy with the satisfaction of experiencing the roots tradition and, at the same time, feeling the richness of stretching the art form.”
To promote The Big Bad Blues, which arrives on Sept. 21, Gibbons is mounting a tour that begins Oct. 13 at the Riverside Casino and Golf Resort in Riverside, Iowa, and ends on Nov. 18 at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, Calif. Former Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum, who played on the album, will be in Gibbons' band for these shows. You can see all the dates here, along with a lyric video for the second single, "Missin' Yo' Kissin'"