Known to the world as "That Lil' Ol' Band from Texas,"
ZZ Top were had a thoroughly unique career. They started as a trio putting their own spin on blues & boogie rock, and became arena rock stars in the 1970s. In the 1980s, they cannily reinvented themselves, hot-wiring their sound with sequencers and synthesizers and becoming unlikely MTV heroes with a series of clever videos that turned bearded frontmen
Billy Gibbons (guitar) and
Dusty Hill (bass) into an eccentric visual signature. This gambit made them one of the only groups of their era to not only survive in the new arena of pop, but to become more popular than ever, gaining a new audience without sacrificing the old one. At their core, ZZ Top's songs never changed that much, taking standard blues figures, filtering them through Gibbons' precisely raunchy guitar, marrying them to the simple but funky groove of Hill and drummer
Frank Beard, and adding lyrics steeped in surreal wit as they dealt with sex, booze, the blues, and the glorious idiosyncrasies of life in Texas. Their stardom faded a bit in the mid-'90s as their albums stopped topping the charts, but they remained a popular live act that could reliably fill large venues and give fans a great show more than 50 years after the act debuted. 1973's Tres Hombres was their first major success and the point where their trademark sound found itself, 1983's Eliminator introduced the streamlined, new wave-influenced approach that brought them their greatest success, and 2012's La Futura, the final studio album from the original trio, was a return to form that delivered Lone Star guitar raunch with flashes of electronic sheen.
In October 2017, the band canceled a number of shows when Dusty Hill developed health problems and his doctors insisted he take a break. They were back at work in 2018, and in 2019 they were booked to play an eight-night residency at the Venetian Theater in Las Vegas, the same year a feature-length documentary about the group, That Little Ol' Band from Texas, debuted on Netflix. The Covid-19 pandemic shut down the Las Vegas residency after a few shows and kept ZZ Top off the road throughout 2020, but they planned an extensive tour beginning in July 2021 and extending well into 2022. Four dates into the tour, Dusty Hill dropped out after his health issues once again made it necessary for him to return home. On July 23, the trio played their first show without Hill since 1970, with their guitar tech, Elwood Francis, taking over on bass with Hill's blessings. On July 28, 2021, Dusty Hill died at his home in Houston, Texas at the age of 72. Shortly after Hill's passing was revealed to the media, Billy Gibbons released a statement saying Hill insisted the band go on in the event of his death, and that Francis would continue to hold down the bass for the trio.
