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Tres Hombres (Spanish language for "three men") is the third studio album by the American Rock music band ZZ Top, released on July 26, 1973, by London Records. It was the band's first collaboration with engineer Terry Manning. The album was ZZ Top's commercial breakthrough in the United States, peaking at number 8 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1974. Lead single "La Grange" reached number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first of many of the band's albums to incorporate the use of Spanish language terminology in its branding.
We could tell that we had something special. The record became quite the turning point for us. The success was handwriting on the wall, because from that point we became honorary citizens of Memphis.
At the height of ZZ Top's success in the mid-1980s, a digitally remixed version of the recording was released on CD and the original 1973 mix was no longer issued. The remix version created controversy among fans because it significantly changed the sound of the instruments, especially drums. The remix version was used on all early CD copies and was the only version available for over 20 years. A remastered and expanded edition of the album was released on February 28, 2006, which contains three bonus live tracks. The 2006 edition is the first CD version to use Manning's original 1973 mix. Subsequent releases on digital platforms such as iTunes have used the original mix as well.
In addition to the standard 2-channel stereo version, a four-channel quadraphonic version was also released in 1973 in the Quad 8 8-track tape and Q4 Reel-to-reel tape formats.
The only international single released from the album in most countries was "La Grange" (backed with "Just Got Paid" from the band's second album Rio Grande Mud), which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1974. The song "Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers" was released as a UK only single.
In 2000, the album was voted number 501 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2003, it was ranked number 498 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and in 2012 ranked at number 490 on a revised list. In 2011 Houston Press named it the best boogie rock album ever in its list of "Five Essential Boogie-Rock Albums". In July 2013, 40 years after its release, the album was described by Andrew Dansby in the Houston Chronicle as "... full of characters and doings so steeped in caricature – yet presented straight-faced – as to invite skepticism. The album is stuffed with color and flavor, much like its famous gate-fold photo on the inside: a gut-busting couple of plates of food from the much-beloved but now-closed Leo's Mexican Restaurant on South Shepherd near Westheimer." AllMusic commented that " Tres Hombres is the record that brought ZZ Top their first top ten record, making them stars in the process. It couldn't have happened to a better record", and rated it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Andy Beta of Pitchfork awarded the album 9.0 out of 10, writing in 2017 that, "ZZ Top's 1973 breakthrough was a masterful melding of complementary styles, cramming Southern rock and blues boogie through the band's own idiosyncratic filter."
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