Their first big hit was La Grange, about a brothel in LaGrange, Texas.

This was a real place. Around 1970 I was in a town called Liberty Hill, Texas which was then a sleepy little town in the Texas Hill Country, and I asked the guy I was visiting what there was to do in town. He suggested we go to the Chicken Ranch, which was what the locals called the place.

I turned him down. About a year later a TV reporter out of Houston was trying to make a name for himself so he did a big story on the Chicken Ranch and insisted the DPS close it down. So they did. The guy was Marvin Zindler and there are still a lot of people today that hate the guy for this one thing.

After the publicity ZZ Top wrote a song about it. This was tricky legally under Texas law because they were advertising a brothel. But it no longer existed, so were they really?

Some company in Dallas bought the original building, had it moved to Greenville Ave. in Dallas, which was a restaurant district, and opened it as the Chicken House Chicken House. They even hired the former Madam, Miss Edna, as the official greeter.

A musical was written about it. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was the title but the show is more about Texas politics. It is so close to the truth of Texas politics I could even pick out the exact people the show was making fun of.

But what made ZZ Top great was not the Chicken House. It was their talent. Not many acts can still command the crowds they do after fifty years.