![]() They established a more mainstream sound and gained international success with Eliminator (1983) and Afterburner (1985), which integrated influences from new wave, punk, and dance-rock. With the album El Loco (1981), they began to experiment with synthesizers and drum machines. By the mid-1970s, ZZ Top had become renowned in North America for its live act, including the Worldwide Texas Tour (1976–1977), which was a critical and commercial success.Īfter a hiatus, ZZ Top returned in 1979 with a new musical direction and image, with Gibbons and Hill wearing sunglasses and matching chest-length beards. ![]() Subsequent releases, such as Tres Hombres (1973) and Fandango! (1975), and the singles " La Grange" and " Tush", gained extensive radio airplay. Within a year, they signed with London Records and released ZZ Top's First Album (1971). ZZ Top formed after the demise of Moving Sidewalks, Gibbons' previous band, in 1969. They are popular 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 developed a signature sound based on Gibbons' blues guitar style and Hill and Beard's rhythm section. For 51 years, it was composed of vocalist-guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and vocalist-bassist Dusty Hill, until Hill's death in 2021. They are true rock icons and, against all odds, they’re really just doing what they’ve always done.ZZ Top is an American rock band formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas. They have sold hundreds of millions of records over the course of their career, have been officially designated as Heroes of The State of Texas, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (by Keith Richards, no less) and have been referenced in countless cartoons and sitcoms. King, et al – as well as the British blues rockers and Jimi Hendrix who emerged the generation before ZZ’s ascendance. Their influences are both the originators of the form – Muddy Waters, B.B. As genuine roots musicians, they have few peers. The elements that keep ZZ TOP fresh, enduring and above the transitory fray can be summed up in the three words of the band’s internal mantra: “Tone, Taste and Tenacity.”. But Dusty’s return was not to be, and Elwood continues to handle the bass duties for the band now and into the future. ![]() When Dusty temporarily departed the tour in the summer of 2021, it was a given that Elwood would be the perfect choice to stand in for Dusty until he could return. The band’s line-up of the bearded Gibbons and Hill and Beard, who ironically is clean shaven, remained intact for more than 50 years until Dusty’s passing. It was one of the music industry’s first albums to have been certified Diamond, far beyond Gold and Platinum and a reflection of US domestic sales exceeding 10 million units.Īs a touring entity, they’ve been without peer over the past five decades, having performed before millions of fans on four continents and have been the subject of their own Grammy-nominated documentary titled That Little Ol’ Band From Texas. Their roots blues skew was intact but added to the mix were tech-age trappings that soon found a visual outlet with such tracks as “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs” on the nascent MTV. Eliminator, their 1983 album was something of a paradigm shift for ZZ TOP. ![]() Their third album, 1973’s Tres Hombres, catapulted them to national attention with the hit “La Grange,” still one of the band’s signature pieces today. It was in Houston in the waning days of 1969 that ZZ TOP coalesced from the core of two rival bands, Billy Gibbons’ Moving Sidewalks and Frank Beard and Dusty Hill’s American Blues.
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