Tracks come from the man himself, though he also does a strikingly outstanding cover of one of blues music’s most recorded tracks, “Rolling and Tumbling,” probably from the playing of Muddy Waters, with whom Gibbons recalls working in the early 1980s. It just felt so natural, so easy, it was loose and raw.” It was a surprise, not planned, but it had all been recorded. Then Joe Hardy asked if I’d like to hear it all. I said, ‘Sure.’ After three days playing together, Greg had to leave to do some gigs out on the road.

“I’d some studio time booked in Texas with two of my favourite people, producer, Joe Hardy, and engineer, Gary Moon, when on the first day the great session drummer Greg Morrow came by and asked if he could sit in. With a new album, ‘Big Bad Blues,’ launched a day or so earlier, Gibbons was keen to explain its significance and place in his own musical world: “It all came about so easily,” he said. When the two finally get a chance to chew the fat, Gibbons had just flown in from Switzerland and was beginning to settle in for some downtime in his central London hotel. Pinning down for interview time proved tricky with a guy who seems always restless, looking around and ahead, ready for the next musical challenge or experience. Catching up with ZZ Top’s legendary frontman, Billy F Gibbons, as he passes through London was the easy part, as senior Elmore writer Iain Patience discovered.

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