Songoftheday 12/24/12 - I got to have a shot of what you got it's oh so sweet...

ZZ Top - "Gimme All Your Lovin"
from the album Eliminator (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #37 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3

Today's Song of the Day is by Texan blues-rock heroes ZZ Top, who were formed in 1969 under guitarist Billy Gibbons, with two other members who would be replaced that same year with classic lineup of bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard (ironically the one without the beard). They put out their first album (aptly named ZZ Top's First Album) in 1971, but it wasn't until their second, Rio Grande Mud, that they got their first minor chart hit, "Francine" which went to #69 a year later.

The trio's next album, Tres Hombres, is still a classic (it's one of Rolling Stone magazines top-500 albums of all time), and gave them another minor hit in America, "La Grange", that went to the top-20 in Australia in 1973. Two years later, they had their first US breakthrough hit as the wickedly rauchy "Tush" made the top-20 on the pop chart. In the early 80s, the band continued to grow their success on rock radio, and in 1981 their pun-intended song "Tube Snake Boogie" became a top-5 hit on the nascent Maintream Rock chart in Billboard. The processed vocals on that blues-rock number set them up for the full-on attack they would put out on the next album.

In 1983, the band released their eighth studio album, Eliminator. The album kept their blues roots but added extra synthesizers and vocal harmony production tricks to result in a full-out pop/rock hybrid smash of an album. The first single, "Gimme All Your Lovin", written by the band (also engineer Terry Manning would win a settlement claiming rights) and produced by Bill Ham, introduced most of the post-MTV world to the three hombres with the help of a kickin' new car and a gaggle of lovely ladies...

The single became ZZ Top's third top-40 hit, and went to #2 on the Mainstream Rock radio format chart as well. It also was their first worldwide success, reaching the top-10 in England, Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and helped Eliminator become their third top-10 album and biggest seller, eventually pushing over 10 million copies. And most importantly, it helped the trio of semi-older musician get a hip brand that would carry them through the video age over two more albums...

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


In 1994, two great dance divas, Kym Mazelle and Jocelyn Brown, came together to record a dance version of the song, and made the British top-40 with it...

Around the same time, Finnish act the Leningrad Cowboys also took on the song with a definite Slavic/Baltic take...

Country group Lonestar also covered "Gimme All Your Lovin" for a tribute album to the band..(which I have and quite like)..

Meanwhile, on another tribute album, alt-rockers Filter recorded the song...

I won't have any Song of the Day on Christmas, but up Wednesday, an Illinois city-named group that's not Chicago takes another shot.