ZZ Top
ZZ Top is an American rock band formed in Houston, Texas, in 1969. For 51 years, it consisted of vocalist-guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard, and bassist-vocalist Dusty Hill until his death in 2021. ZZ Top developed a signature sound based on Gibbons' blues style and Hill and Beard's rhythm section. They are known for their live performances, sly and humorous lyrics, and the matching appearances of Gibbons and Hill, who wore sunglasses, hats, and long beards.
ZZ Top formed after Gibbons' band, Moving Sidewalks, disbanded in 1969. Within a year, they signed with London Records and released ZZ Top's First Album in 1971. Albums Tres Hombres and Fandango!, and singles "La Grange" and "Tush", gained extensive radio airplay and have become staple tracks of classic rock radio. By the mid-1970s, ZZ Top had become renowned in North America for their live act, including the Worldwide Texas Tour, which was a critical and commercial success. ZZ Top returned in 1979 with a new musical direction and image, with Gibbons and Hill wearing sunglasses and matching chest-length beards. With the album El Loco, they began to experiment with synthesizers and drum machines. They established a more mainstream sound and rose to international stardom with Eliminator and Afterburner, which integrated influences from new wave, punk, and dance-rock. The popularity of the albums' music videos, including for "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man", and "Legs", gave them mass exposure on MTV and made them prominent in 1980s pop culture. The Afterburner tour set records for the highest-attended and highest-grossing of 1986.
After the release of their 10th album, Recycler, and its accompanying tour, the group's experimentation continued with mixed success on the albums Antenna, Rhythmeen, XXX, and Mescalero. They released La Futura and Goin' 50, a compilation album commemorating the band's 50th anniversary. In 2018 the band won the Guinness world record for the longest-running active group with no lineup changes. On July 28, 2021, ZZ Top announced that Hill had died at his home in Houston at the age of 72. In line with Hill's wishes, he was replaced by their longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis.
ZZ Top has released 15 studio albums and sold an estimated 50 million records. They have won three MTV Video Music Awards, and in 2004, the members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Gibbons the 32nd-greatest guitarist of all time. The band members have supported campaigns and charities including Childline, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and the Delta Blues Museum.
History
Formation
Billy Gibbons had formed the band Moving Sidewalks in Houston in 1966 with Dan Mitchell on drums, Tom Moore on keyboards, and Don Summers on bass. The group earned Gibbons local recognition, with their single "99th Floor" becoming a local hit. After opening for various popular groups such as the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and the 13th Floor Elevators, Moving Sidewalks eventually released the album Flash. By this point, both Moore and Summers had been drafted into the United States Army to fight in the Vietnam War, and Gibbons and Mitchell subsequently recruited bassist-keyboardist Lanier Greig, thus forming the first iteration of ZZ Top. The name of the band was Gibbons' idea; the band had a small apartment covered with concert posters, and he noticed that many performers' names used initials. Gibbons particularly noticed B.B. King and Z. Z. Hill, and thought of combining the two into "ZZ King", but considered it too similar to the original name. He then figured that "king is at the top" which gave him the idea of naming the band "ZZ Top".Early years (1969–1972)
ZZ Top was managed by Bill Ham, a Waxahachie, Texas, native who had befriended Gibbons a year earlier. They released their first single, "Salt Lick", in 1969, and the B-side contained the song "Miller's Farm". Both songs credited Gibbons as the composer. Shortly after the recording of "Salt Lick", Greig was replaced by bassist Billy Ethridge, a bandmate of Stevie Ray Vaughan's, and Mitchell was replaced by Frank Beard of American Blues.Due to lack of interest from the major American record companies, ZZ Top accepted a record deal from London Records, the American affiliate of the British Decca Records label. Unwilling to sign a recording contract, Ethridge quit the band and Dusty Hill, Frank Beard's American Blues bandmate, became his replacement in late 1969. At this moment, all three members of the band were 20 years old. After Hill moved from Dallas to Houston, ZZ Top signed with London in 1970. They performed their first concert together at a Knights of Columbus Hall in Beaumont, Texas, on February 10, 1970. The show was booked by KLVI radio personality Al Caldwell, who was also instrumental in broadcasting the band's first recordings.
In addition to assuming the role as the band's leader, Gibbons became the main lyricist and musical arranger. With the assistance of Ham and engineer Robin Hood Brians, ZZ Top's First Album was released. It featured "barrelhouse" rhythms, distorted guitars, double entendres, and innuendo. The music and songs reflected ZZ Top's blues influences. Following their debut album, the band released Rio Grande Mud, which produced their first charting single, "Francine".
First decade of success and signature sound (1973–1982)
ZZ Top released Tres Hombres in 1973, which reached the number eight on the Billboard 200 albums chart by early 1974. The album's sound was the result of the propulsive support provided by Hill and Beard, and Gibbons' "growling" guitar tone. Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that the album "brought ZZ Top their first top-10 record, making them stars in the process". The album included the boogie-driven "La Grange". On the subsequent tour, the band performed sold-out concerts in the US. During this tour, ZZ Top recorded the live tracks that would fill one side of their 1975 album, Fandango!, which also contained one side of new studio songs. The album charted highly and its single "Tush" peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100.ZZ Top began the Worldwide Texas Tour in May 1976 to support Fandango!, and the tour continued through 1977 with 98 shows over 18 months. Tejas, recorded during a break in the tour and released in November 1976, was the final ZZ Top album under their contract with London Records. It was not as successful or as positively received as their previous two efforts, but reached number 17 on the Billboard 200. The singles from Tejas, "It's Only Love" and "Arrested for Driving While Blind", both failed to crack the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100.
In 1978, after almost seven years of touring and a string of successful albums, ZZ Top went on hiatus while Beard dealt with addiction problems. Gibbons traveled to Europe, Beard went to Jamaica, and Hill went to Mexico. Hill also spent three months working at DFW Airport, saying he wanted to "feel normal" and "ground himself" after years spent performing. In 1979, ZZ Top returned to record a new album. Gibbons and Hill were now sporting chest-length beards. ZZ Top signed with Warner Bros. Records and released the album Degüello in late 1979.
While Degüello went platinum, it only reached number 24 on the Billboard chart. The album produced two popular singles: "I Thank You", a cover of the David Porter/Isaac Hayes composition originally recorded by Sam & Dave, and the band original "Cheap Sunglasses". The band remained a popular concert attraction and toured in support of Degüello. In April 1980, ZZ Top made their first appearances in Europe, performing for the German music television show Rockpalast and the BBC show The Old Grey Whistle Test. The band shared the BBC's studio with English electronic group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, whom Gibbons felt "were great". Inspired by OMD, ZZ Top introduced a jerky dancing style to their live show and began to experiment with synthesizers, which featured prominently on the October 1981 album El Loco. The album peaked at number 17 on the Billboard chart, and featured the singles "Tube Snake Boogie", "Pearl Necklace", and "Leila". Their albums from this period showed a more modern sound.
''Eliminator'' (1983)
Gibbons pushed ZZ Top in a more modern direction for Eliminator, released in March 1983. It featured two top-40 singles, and two additional Top Rock hits, with the extended dance mix of "Legs" peaking at number 13 on the Club Play Singles chart. The album became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million copies and reaching number 9 in the U.S. Billboard pop charts. It is the only ZZ Top album to be certified diamond.Several music videos from the album were in regular rotation on MTV, attracting many new fans. The band won their first MTV Video Music Awards in the categories of Best Group Video for "Legs", and Best Direction for "Sharp Dressed Man". The music videos were included in their Greatest Hits video, which was later released on DVD and quickly went multiplatinum.
Eliminator retained Gibbons's signature guitar style, while adding elements of new wave music; the electronic band Depeche Mode was cited as an influence. To compose the songs, Gibbons worked closely with live-in engineer Linden Hudson at the band's rehearsal studio in Texas, setting a faster tempo with drum machines and synthesizers. The main recording sessions were again supervised in Memphis by Terry Manning, who collaborated with Gibbons to replace many of the contributions from Hill and Beard. Jimi Jamison joined Manning to provide backing vocals with Billy Gibbons even referring to him as the fourth member of the band. Jamison also provided backing vocals in the following albums Afterburner and Recycler.
Stage manager David Blayney described how Hudson co-wrote much of the material on the album without receiving credit. The band recorded Hudson's song "Thug" without permission, finally paying him $600,000 in 1986 after he proved in court he held the copyright. The band had previously used other people's work without credit; for instance, in 1972 ZZ Top claimed sole writing credit for the hit song "Francine" from the album Rio Grande Mud, cutting out two co-writers, Steve Perron and Kenny Cordray. Hudson's extensive contributions to the song "Groovy Little Hippie Pad" went uncredited in 1981 for the album El Loco.