Lowdown in the Street by ZZ Top

OK, ZZ Top are not exactly “off the beaten path”; but Lowdown In The Street is both a deep cut and, best I can tell, nobody else has transcribed it properly… so it’s fair game for Stairway.

ZZ Top were also my first real favourite band. This was in the Eliminator and Afterburner days, famous for spinning guitars, hotrods, and so on — all profoundly un-cool in 1990s suburban Manchester, I can tell you.

Anyway, this track comes from their 1979 album Degüello, best known for the hit Cheap Sunglasses. This well before the synths and furry guitars of their late-80s heyday, and closer to their blues-rock roots.

Lesson

It’s in open C tuning, which is C-G-C-G-E, from low to high. It’s an unusual tuning, and at first I thought it was open G with a capo at the 5th fret. You can actually play it in that tuning, and it’s arguably preferable from a practical standpoint. I’ll leave it as an exercise for you to work out, but you’ll find the fingering patterns are very much the same as shown below — everything just moves over a string.

Intro

If, like me, you’re a heavy-handed player, you might find it helpful to be careful to use a lighter touch throughout this song. The lower tuning makes it all too easy to push notes out of tune.

Verses

A little bit of hybrid picking here: pick that open 4th string with your plectrum, while plucking the 1st string with your ring finger. The rest of it can be done with regular alternate picking.

Chorus

I find myself wanting to go for bigger voicings on the low C here, but with characteristic restraint Billy keeps things sparse. Note there’s slight palm-muting to give this a bit of a percussive feel:

That’s all. As with so much of Billy Gibbons’ playing, it’s simple but very effective.