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| Ten Thousand Motels |
We love... ZZ Top
Jul 18 2005
Robin Turner, Western Mail
icwales.icnetwork
ZZ TOP is the three-piece rock band you never forget, thanks to two of the band members' bizarre waist-length beard, shades and trench-coat look.
Despite their way-out appearance, the ZZ Top members are widely regarded as the masters of blues rock.
A big hit in the 1970s, the band, from Houston, Texas, made it even bigger when MTV hit our television screens.
Their surreal videos of singles such as Gimme All Your Lovin', Legs and Sharp Dressed Man, featuring the cool ZZ Top-mobile (a red, vintage coupe) and a trio of beautiful women who turn up mysteriously to help people, made ZZ Top millions in sales.
The band is made up of Billy Gibbons (vocals and guitar), Dusty Hill (bass) and Frank Beard (drums).
As well as a distinctive hard-driving guitar sound and innuendo-soaked lyrics many of which are said to be about places and people in their home state of Texas, the band is probably best known for its distinctive look.
Gibbons and Hill are always pictured wearing sunglasses, trench-coats and their trademark ultra-long beards.
Ironically Frank Beard (the name he was born with in Dallas in 1949), is the only member of the band who does not sport an outrageous beard.
In 1984, Gillett offered guitar ace Billy Gibbons and his bass man Hill $1m each to shave their beards off for a TV ad. But they both said 'No'.
The origins of the ZZ Top name are not clear, with the band members telling different stories.
It is either based on two brands of American cigarette paper, Zigzag and Top, a tribute to blues legend ZZ Hill or based on a distorted billboard the band members drove past in a car containing the letters ZZ and Top next to each other.
Take your pick.
The band was formed after Billy Gibbons's first group, The Moving Sidewalks, split up.
Gibbons, whose flawless hard- edged blues-rock guitar work has been copied by many, grew up in an affluent family in the Houston suburb of Tanglewood.
He is said to have learned about the blues from his family's maid, an African American.
He met the man who would become ZZ Top's manager, Bill Mack Ham, at a Doors' concert in Dallas in 1968.
They recruited fellow Texans Dusty Hill and Frank Beard and in 1969 ZZ Top was born.
Dusty Hill is said to have met Gibbons and Beard in a Texas bar and passed out drunk before getting up and returning their greetings.
The group first gained attention with their Tres Hombres album, which contained the song La Grange, a reference the bordello that became the subject of the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Their 1983 album Eliminator, boosted by music videos for the tracks made them a global brand.
By 1990, the band had sold 50m records.
Although best known for their lavish music videos and "driving sound" hit singles, it was early classic songs such as Cheap Sunglasses which endeared them to rock fans.
ZZ Top's 1996 album Rythmeen was considered one of their best. And Billy Gibbons called it the "first pure trio record of our career", because only the three of them played on it.
That return to an earlier, more raw sound continued on their 1999 album, XXX, which celebrated the band's thirtieth anniversary.
At the turn of the century, ZZ Top was the only rock group with its original members after three decades.
ZZ Top are still rocking 35 years after they began, appearing this month before a crowd of 20,000 at the Ottowa Bluesfest in Canada.
Guitarist Billy Gibbons has made himself a legend in rock blues circles, not for his huge beard, but due to his excellence on the Les Paul guitar.
Back in the 1960s, the late Jimi Hendrix described Billy Gibbons on the Johnny Carson show as the "best guitarist in the world".
Gibson's then band The Moving Sidewalks had been backing the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the legendary guitar hero never missed a minute of Gibbons' virtuoso performances.
Gibbons has never married while Frank Beard has twin sons and a daughter.
Dusty Hill is divorced and has a daughter.
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| Monkeytonk-man |
Fuck Yeah, ZZ Top rule!
Went to see them at the Birmingham Academy on the last tour 'Mescalaro' brilliant man, it totally rocked.
Went to see them a few years ago in Rochester New York, about '99 I think, I was living in toronto at the time and I went down with a mate of mine.
Anyhoo, Lynyrd Skynyrd were co-headliners, now I like this band, but as soon as we walked into the venue I saw this dude with a shaved head, white vest and swastika tattoo'd on his arm. I was like - fuck me, what the hell is that all about! total bummer. Seems lots of inbreads & rednecks like Skynyrd.
As we were waitin for them to come on, I stoked some strong shit, totally tripped out and when Skynyrd came on, all of a sudden I thought I was at a Nazi Rally! and the crowd weren't singning along to the songs but goin' 'Sieg Heil' or something.
Totally trippin by now, I looked next to me and sitting there was just about the only black guy in the audience, with a white girl friend!
Well by now I was like 'Oh man, we gotta get out of here, there gonna kill you if they see you! I thought we were at a rock concert not some bullshit fascist get together! the couple were looking at me like I was totally out of it (which of course i was)
Well, I went to the bar, got a few beers inside me and tried to get my head straight, got my shit together by the time ZZ Top came on, but that was one hell of a gig.
Oh well, just thought I'd share that with you.freaky at the time, but funny now!
Remember kids - Just say No! |
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| J.J.Flash |
I'm plenty sure they surely ROCK the shit outta their instruments..... but I really need to know more of their material, unfortunately Jay so far doesn't know too much of them. "Gimme All Your Lovin'" is fucking-tastic! |
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| Martha |
They perform at the Ohio State Fair Sunday August 7th. Tix are $25 reserved and that pays for your fair admittance all day as well. I'm planning on going.
I remember seeing the guitar that Billy gave to Keef back when the tour was happening, at the benefit show in LA. Keef had only been given this acrylic hot pink and silver fender a few days or so prior and there is sat center stage all by itself......and Keef played it during the show.
Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharped dressed man...... |
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| Maxlugar |
[quote]Monkeytonk-man wrote:
Seems lots of inbreads & rednecks like Skynyrd.
Hells yes!
Do we not need to get our groove on too?
Yeeeeeeee Haaaaaaawwwwww!!!!!!!
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| kath |
i like their music, but that schtick they do, everything so choreographed and synchronized...i hate that. |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
New Book Tells ZZ Top Frontman Billy F Gibbons' Life Story Through His Amazing Collection of Custom Automobiles and Guitars
ST. PAUL, Minn., July 18 -- Billy F Gibbons' hot rods and custom car fixation is the stuff of rock 'n' roll legend. Beyond this bona fide bluesman's mastery of the six-string and his unrepentant love for internal combustion one discovers a noted collector whose own designs have manifested both in his cars and in hundreds of mind-bending custom guitars.
In Billy F Gibbons: Rock and Roll Gearhead, ZZ Top's iconic ax man riffs on his teenage garage-band years, his four-decade recording career, his experiences with icons like Jimi Hendrix and Chuck Berry and life on the road. He reveals the tales behind dozens of guitars from his collection of more than 600. These include the famous "Furry One," the "Muddywood," constructed from a timber fallen from Muddy Waters' childhood home and commissioned as a fundraiser for the Delta Blues Museum, and, of course, the creme de la creme, "Pearly Gates," his cherished musical companion.
Gibbons also gives the lowdown on 10 of his outstanding rods and customs, including Kopperhed, CadZZilla and the famous red Eliminator Coupe. In addition to exclusive photography by Bay-Area shooter David Perry, the book features dozens of images from Gibbons' personal archive.
Billy F Gibbons: Rock and Roll Gearhead by Billy F Gibbons with Tom
Vickers, photography by David Perry
Jacketed hardcover / 10 1/2 x 12 / 192 pages / 175 color,
25 black-and-white photos
ISBN 0-7603-2269-4 / $29.95 / $396.95 (CAN) / pounds Sterling 18.99 (UK)
Available October 2005 in bookstores everywhere or through
http://www.motorbooks.com/ .
About the Authors and Photographer
Billy F Gibbons is known worldwide as the lead guitarist of ZZ Top, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 by Keith Richards. An avid collector, he is the driving force behind the band's use of stunning custom cars and hot rods on its album covers and in its music videos. He lives in Houston and Los Angeles.
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| Soldatti |
I love ZZ Top, fuckin' great band. |
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