Long before the Rip-Van-Winkle beards, spinning “belt-buckle” guitars, and über-cool music videos, ZZ Top was just a “little ol’ band from Texas”— albeit a little ol’ band that kicked some serious blues-rock butt. While they still rock as hard as they ever did, “Just Got Paid” (from 1972’s Rio Grande Mud) provides a trip back in time to the Lone Star trio’s stripped-down, jeans-and-cowboy-boots beginnings.

DIAL TONE

What He Used: Gibbons most likely used his 1958 Gibson Les Paul, which is set up with high action and heavier strings for slide work. Gibbons used Marshall amps in this era, and still relies on Marshall (the JMP-1 preamp) to generate his mighty tones. Gibbons often substitutes a Mexican peso or a U.S. quarter for a standard pick.

How to Get the Sound: If you’ve got about $11,000 lying around, you can pick up one of Gibson’s new “Pearly Gates” Billy Gibbons 1959 Les Paul replica. Otherwise, you can use a regular Les Paul or a Les Paul-style guitar with a humbucking bridge pickup (check out Seymour Duncan’s Pearly Gates model). Plug into a British-voiced amp like a Marshall, Hiwatt, or Orange, then crank the overdrive and boost the treble and middle controls, but go easy on the bass.

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OPEN-E TUNING
Both guitars in “Just Got Paid” are in open-E tuning. In other words, if you strum all of the strings open you get the notes of an open E major chord (from low to high: E–B–E–G#–B–E). With open-E tuning, the low-E, B, and high-E strings remain in standard tuning, while the A and D strings are tuned up a whole step each, to B and E, and the G string is raised a half step, to G#.

TEXAS RIFFING
The main riff that drives “Just Got Paid” is an E minor pentatonic (E–G–A–B–D) melody fortified with a palm-muted, low-E string pedal. The trickiest part of the riff is in the picking. Fig. 1 lays out a pattern that will keep you on the “outside” of the opposing strings (picking down on the low-E string; picking up on the D and A string counterpoints). Most of the rhythm chores (Gtr.1) throughout the song involve playing inverted power chords (5th in the bass, root on top) interspersed with the main riff. The rhythm part during the solo, however, contains some intriguing chordal passages that are unique to open-E tuning. Most of them are intended to ring together, so proper fingering is crucial for a successful outcome. The fingering suggestions in Fig. 2 should help you to get a game plan started for the rest of the maneuvers.

Figure 1


Figure 2


SLIDE WORK
Riffing aside, the main feature in this song is Gibbons’s slide guitar playing. Though he uses a glass bottleneck slide on his second finger, you can use a metal one just as effectively. Regardless of what type of slide you use, and which finger you wear it on, remember to position the slide directly above each designated fret wire—not the fretting area. Also, be sure to damp the remaining strings with one or more of your fret-hand fingers behind the slide, so they don’t sound unwanted notes.

You will notice several “fractional” slide numbers, such as 10.5, 11.5, and so on. These indicate that you should position the slide between the frets; for example, 10.5 means that the slide should be positioned halfway between the 10th and 11th frets. These in-between notes, or microtones, add musical tension, an essential component of the blues.

Like many slide players, Billy gets a lot of mileage out of a few chord-tone boxes. A great many of his licks in this tune are derived from target tones on the 10th and 12th frets [Fig. 3]. Essentially, this particular box pattern of notes comprises D major (D–F#–A) and E major (E–G#–B) triads.

Figure 3

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Want more?
• Get more ZZ Top guitar tabs at guitarinstructor.com
• Get the ZZ Top Guitar Anthology guitar tab book at musicdispatch.com
• Download “Just Got Paid” from iTunes
• Visit ZZ Top online at zztop.com
• Learn more about the Gibson Les Paul Pearly Gates model at gibson.com
• Learn more about the Pearly Gates humbucking pickup
at seymourduncan.com

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