How to play La Grange by ZZ Top [First Guitar Solo!]

Sometimes when you are in a band one of your mates gets a brilliant idea and without thinking exclaims, “You know what would be great?!? What if we broke into La Grange right in the middle of this song!!” And hence, I was assigned the task of learning how to play La Grange by ZZ Top. 8 weeks later, I finally had it ready to bring to the guys. And! Bring it to all of you!!

This is an incredible piece of blues guitar work. I mean really good. If you know the song, you probably already know how great Billy Gibbons is on this track. It’s their number one song on Spotify with over 300 million plays. The first result for “ZZ Top La Grange” on YouTube has over 159 million views. If this isn’t ZZ Top’s finest 3 minutes and 50 seconds worth of work, I’m not sure what is. Learning how to play La Grange is a deep dive into the blues guitar archive.

You’re going to learn the main riff in the intro and verse for the song. While these licks are not difficult to play, they do require you to slow down and concentrate on playing the notes very deliberately. Part of what gives the song its bump and bounce is the syncopated work the right hand is doing while the left hand follows along.

Check our YouTube lesson to see the licks demonstrated and slowed down! And don’t forget to scroll down for tabs!

Gear Corner

Learning how to play La Grange is challenging even before you begin thinking about what guitar you should be playing. Part of the mystery here is Billy Gibbons used two guitars to get the iconic sounds for the track.

I was very impressed with the tones I got out of the telecaster when I first started recording the intro because it sounds so much like the record. Well, there’s a reason for that. Gibbons used a hardtail strat, which when using the bridge pickup, has many similar tonal qualities to a tele. If you’re gunning for that authentic sound, grab a hardtail strat and get jamming.

Then the band comes in, and the guitar suddenly sounds so huge! What!? How? WHY! Well, Billy’s famous (and I mean famous) 1959 Gibson “Pearly Gates” Les Paul standard is to blame for the amazing tone. This guitar makes appearances on every ZZ Top album, and it is legendary for its sound. I can’t imagine what’s going to become of this guitar given how it has been idolized and mythicized over the years by enthusiasts like you and me. Since I don’t have a Les Paul, I pulled out the trusty ol’ SG, and it did the trick.

Take both of these guitars and plug them into a 100 Watt Marshall Super Lead, and boom! You’ve got tone for La Grange! For me, I used my Line 6 rack modeler and dialed in the “Plexi Lead 100” amp model. The result was damn close to Billy’s tone. I would suggest using the volume knob on your guitar to bring the volume down for the intro to help reduce distortion and clean up the tone. When the band comes in, you can turn it up and melt the amp down.

Guitar Chords!

Well, the music theory section is going to be short in this post. We’re looking at a blues boogie with one chord. This is an A power chord, and it really doesn’t get any simpler than that.

During the solo, the band goes to a C chord, and it pretty much follows the same feel and rhythm. What can I say? Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication!

Main Riff!

Everybody who hears the opening line to this song instantly wants to learn how to play La Grange on guitar. I don’t care who you are. It just sounds really good! We start with a double stop in A, and then we use our pinky finger (or ring finger if you’ve got larger hands) to reach the 5th fret of our D and G strings. The result is a blues lick that is pulled straight from the blues archives. Gibbons is kind of like a blues historian, and he shows off his skills by grabbing one of the most iconic boogie sounds and putting his unique spin on it.

Then, we need to change the riff to add a little walk-up on the A string. This new variation becomes the backing track for the verse and the second guitar solo.

Guitar Solo!

The best part of the song is easy Billy’s noodling on the guitar. You have to wonder if he had the solo planned out, or if he was just riffing in the studio. The notes come so freely and the licks are so clean!

What’s great about this solo is the fact that it’s just the minor pentatonic blues scale played over a C chord. You can take any of these licks and move them to the corresponding chord position. Stealing from Billy’s work on this song is going to improve your playing tremendously. And you’re going to start turning some heads!

Today we will only break down the first solo. If you want me to dissect the second solo, let me know in the comments! Or send me an email!

Lick #1

Here is the first of the minor pentatonic licks of the first solo. If you’ve been playing the blues for a while, the fingering and the patterns should look extremely familiar to you. So what makes this so challenging? Speed! Billy rips through this lick and makes the triplets sound easy. I recommend slowing any of these parts down with a metronome and practicing these at a low BPM. Then you can slowly increase the speed until you’re satisfied or until you can play along with the record.

Lick #2

Billy comes back to these licks a lot on the 8th & 10th fret of the A and D strings. These licks are very similar with a couple of little intricacies that make them different each time Billy comes back to them!

Lick #3

Lick #3 looks a lot like Lick #2 on paper, but it differs ever so slightly! It adds a small drop down to the 6th fret on the A and E strings to expand the sonic range of the solo.

Lick #4

Now we begin to add some of the bluesy rolls that make the end of this solo so iconic. Then it quickly revisits the lower notes that we added in Lick #3.

Lick #5

This is maybe my favorite lick out of the whole solo! It’s super fast and the ascending notes lift you out of the low end of the guitar and into the high end. Then, Billy throws in the really cool harmonic bends on the G string! Remember to use your thumb and pick to play these harmonic notes. You want your right hand to have two points of contact on the string. The first is your pick, and the second is the side of your thumb. Having two points of contact will give you that squealing sound. This is not necessarily an advanced technique, but it may take some practice to bring the squeal out of the guitar.

Remember too that when playing acoustically, the squeal is going to be very quiet! Having an amp turned up super loud forces the amplifier to create some natural compression. This compression brings the harmonic to the front of the guitar’s “mix.” If you’re having trouble getting this sound out of your guitar at low volumes, consider trying a compression pedal to help smooth things out.

Lick #6

Here comes another bluesy roll! This is the second time you’re going to use these notes, but it’s different from the rest of the song. Instead of alternating between the G and Bb notes, you’ll slide up to the G, the play the Bb three times or two times as tabbed out below.

Lick #7

Maybe my second favorite hidden gem in this song is Lick #7 and Lick #8. Lick #7 is a classic pentatonic lick, and differs from the beginning of the song AGAIN! It’s amazing how Billy doesn’t play anything the same way twice. What makes Lick #7 so cool is that it does not resolve on the 1 (or the root note). What I mean by that is the solo is played over a C chord, and most guitar players would end/resolve Lick #7 by playing a C note (or the 10th fret of the D string). Instead, Billy does kind of a fake out by playing the C note half a beat ahead of where it should be, then continues the lick!

It’s very difficult to hear what’s happening on the record as the end of this lick and the beginning of Lick #8 get pretty muddy. Hopefully, this tab clears up the mud and gives you a good picture of what’s going on here!

Lick #8

I love how Billy Gibbons chose not to resolve Lick #7 with a root note, and instead, he switches back to the low strings and brings us to the sounds of Licks #2 & 3! Really cool!

Lick #9

We’re at the most famous (or at least one of the most recognizable) parts of the first solo. I feel like when people talk about learning how to play La Grange, this is the sound they really want to get. Yes, the intro lick is cool, but this sounds the coolest. You can hear the fatness of the Les Paul when these two notes begin alternating. It melts everything down in a way that makes you want more…like a second solo? Yes, a second solo would be great.

Lick #10

Similar to Lick #9. I don’t have much else to add other than this is some melt-your-face-off stuff!

Lick #11

Before we get to the very last blues roll, we need to throw in this quick filler lick. If you’ve made it this far, you’re going to get this lick right away. What makes Billy’s playing so great is he typically uses the same scale positions and shapes. So if you learn one Billy Gibbons lick, it’s almost like learning all of them.

Lick #12

Back to your blues rolls, and you’re getting close to the end!

Lick #13

Take it out! The final lick of the first guitar solo! Be proud that you made it this far because this is no easy feat. It definitely pushed my limits on how fast I could play. Don’t give up! You’re almost there.

Lick #14

The final lick of the solo is here! This is something that will look familiar if you play a lot of Chuck Berry songs. You may also recognize it if you listen to old jazz or blues tunes. It’s one of the building blocks for what happened in the 50’s & 60’s with music becoming electrified, so it’s a good one to add to your aresenal.

Lick #15

Then comes the big turnaround! This lick gets you from the C-chord solo, back to your main riffs in A!

Lick #16

The final turn around lick! Note, you will play Lick #15 and 16 together, and then repeat these two licks before going back to the main riffs.

That’s IT!

You know how to play La Grange’s main riffs and the first guitar solo!! If you’re looking for more blues guitar riffs to rip on your electric, check out our lesson for ZZ Top’s live cover of Catfish Blues (smellytele.com)! I cover the main licks for the song and every filler lick. Plus, we dissect the guitar solo piece by piece! If you enjoyed how to play La Grange’s minor pentatonic licks, you’re going to love the solo for Catfish Blues!

Remember, if you would like to support this webpage, please become a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/smellytele! A perk of being a patron? You’ll be able to download the tabs so you can follow along with the video lessons & our lesson posts!

Also, go and check out some of our other electric guitar lessons! Maybe you’re more into Country? We have lessons for All Night, Brothers Osborne (smellytele.com), and Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line (smellytele.com)

And if you liked the guitar we used in today’s video, check out our full review of the Fender Classic Player Baja ’60s Telecaster (smellytele.com) and the Gibson SG ’61 Reissue (smellytele.com).

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