- Writers: Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard
- Producer: Bill Ham
- Recorded: 1982-1983 at Ardent Record Studios, Memphis, Tennessee
- Released: Spring 1983
- Players:
- Billy Gibbons — guitar, vocals
- Dusty Hill — bass
- Frank Beard — drums
- Album: Eliminator (Warner Bros., 1983)
- Also On:
- ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits (Warner Bros., 1992)
- Chrome, Smoke & BBQ: The ZZ Top Box Set (Rhino, 2003)
- Rancho Texicano: The Very Best Of ZZ Top (Rhino, 2004)
- “Legs” was the third single from ZZ Top‘s Eliminator album, following “Gimme All Your Lovin'” and “Sharp Dressed Man.”
- The song’s lyrics don’t hide anything — the tune, like so many in the ZZ Top catalogue, is an appreciation of the female anatomy.
- The hosiery maker L’eggs also recognized the song’s appeal and contracted with the band to use “Legs” for pantyhose ads.
- Like its predecessors, “Legs” was supported by a stylish video that featured the band, some beautiful models, and the real Eliminator — a 1933 Ford three-window coupe that became one of ZZ Top’s signatures.
- Thanks to their videos, ZZ Top became known as much for their look — especially the foot-long beards of singer-guitarist Reverend Billy F. Gibbons and singer-bassist Dusty Hill — as their sound. At the time, drummer Frank Beard was the only band member without a beard, though that’s changed in the years since.
- Eliminator peaked at Number Nine on the Billboard 200, stayed on the chart for nearly three years, and has sold over 10 million copies.
FAST FORWARD:
- After 36 years together, ZZ Top is perhaps the longest-running act in rock-and-roll to have its original lineup intact.
- ZZ Top was forced to cancel the European leg of their XXX world tour in 1999 after Hill was diagnosed with hepatitis C and was forced off the road. His doctors have since given him a clean bill of health.
- Gibbons is now an ordained minister.
- ZZ Top was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.