This is the group that brought us “My Head’s in Mississippi,” “Fuzzbox Voodoo,” “Poke Chop Sandwich” and “Buck Nekkid.” Bless their grizzled beards. Bearded barrelhouse gurus, semi-mythical characters, they came to remind us that rock and roll ain’t nothin’ but the bastard offspring of the blues and hillbilly music.
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In the Nineties and beyond, ZZ Top returned to their roots and emerged as curious curators of the blues legacy. This is the ZZ Top of “Tush,” “La Grange,” “Whiskey’n Mama” and “Enjoy and Get It On.” For Eighties fans, they’re one of the most ubiquitous, albeit unlikely, icons of the MTV era, three sharp-dressed men with a sound as gleaming and streamlined as the custom hot rods and curvaceous cuties seen in the video clips for “Gimmie All Your Lovin’,” “Legs” and “Sharp Dressed Man.” For those who came up in the Seventies, ZZ Top are the ultimate beer-drinkin’, hell-raisin’, good-timin’, ass-kickin’ party band. His penchant for showmanship and sharp eye for visuals (a genetic legacy from Uncle Cedric, perhaps) has enabled him to reinvent the band for each succeeding era.Īny one human being’s conception of ZZ Top depends heavily on the decade in which that particular human being made the passage through adolescence into adulthood. But Billy’s Hollywood flair is every bit as crucial to ZZ Top’s identity and longevity as the group’s deep Texas blues roots. The Houston Billy is the one everybody knows: the deep-talkin’ Texan with a passion for barbecue, roadhouses, mud-flap gals and stockcar racetracks. No one fully understands the comings and goings of Billy F. and Houston residences as well as various other locales.
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Houston is also the site of ZZ Top’s recording studio, Foam Box, and eight warehouses containing the bulk of Billy’s African art collection, hundreds of guitars, amps, effects and Lord knows what else. There’s even more stuff at Billy’s house in Houston, the city in which he was born. And, of course, there are guitars and amps everywhere-rare ones, new ones, the weird and the wonderful: a Billy Bo Gretsch Jupiter based on an ax given to Billy by rock and roll legend Bo Diddley, a brand-new black JB Tele adorned with sparkling jewels, a few pawnshop specials, three Watkins Dominator amps of different vintages and a Marshall Bluesbreaker in red-orange Tolex. A number of vintage automobiles, all of them black, are parked out front. Museum-quality pieces from his world-class collection of African art adorn the rooms. The adobe-style dwelling is brimming with further artifacts of Billy’s mania for shopping. In fact, Billy inherited the family manse in the Hollywood Hills. His uncle Cedric is one of the most celebrated cinematic art directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Billy’s dad, Fred, was a soundtrack musician and composer for MGM during the Thirties. If you’re involved in some venture he’s into, you really get into it.”Įverybody knows that ZZ Top are one of the greatest things ever to spring from the Texas mud, but fewer people get the Hollywood connection. “Billy’s an interesting guy,” says Dusty Hill, ZZ Top’s bassist and Gibbons’ bandmate for the past four decades.
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He can’t find one he hasn’t already seen, but he does present me with a copy of Dillinger, quite possibly the only film noir I’ve never seen. Billy digs and digs, growing visibly frustrated. Billy’s craving some film noir tonight, that ominous, black-and-white, B-movie genre, filled with razor-sharp killers, dangerous gun molls and other desperate characters from the fringes of mid–20th century American society. Gibbons roots through the bargain bin, commenting authoritatively on tacky but obscure disco tracks that maybe he ought not admit to knowing so well. “She goes crazy for this stuff,” he confides.įor me he selects a CD by country star Brad Paisley, a new friend of Billy’s, whom he rates pretty highly as a guitarist. band at the Latin Grammys, and a worldbeat compilation for the missus, the comely actress Gilligan, who is approximately half Billy’s age. The Great White Hunter! He swoops down the aisles, deftly picks through stacks of CDs and extracts the discs that capture his fancy: a collection of cuts by Fifties steel guitar legend Speedy West, some Los Lobos albums to prepare for a jam with the famed L.A. Late one recent Hollywood night he could be found prowling the aisles of the Virgin Megastore on Sunset Boulevard, moving stealthily like some African tribal huntsman, albeit one with a long grey beard, strange tufted hat, natty black suit, ample silver wrist jewelry and a white shirt accentuating the night-owl pallor of that small portion of his face left visible by his legendary chin warmer and bizarre headgear. ZZ Top guitarist and mastermind Billy Gibbons is a compulsive shopper.