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ZZ Top (pronounced Zee Zee Top) is an American rock trio, formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas. Its members are Billy Gibbons (lead vocals and lead guitar), Joseph Dusty Hill (vocals, bass, and keyboards), and Frank Beard (drums). ZZ Top is ranked number 44 on VH1 cable's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock."[1] The trio is one of the few rock bands still composed of its original recording members[2], and until September 2006 had the same manager, Bill Ham.
ZZ Top was inducted by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during the annual ceremony on March 15, 2004. Cub Koda wrote, "As genuine roots musicians, they have few peers; Gibbons is one of America's finest blues guitarists working in the hard rock idiom ... while Hill and Beard provide the ultimate rhythm section support."[3]
ZZ Top is almost always pictured wearing sunglasses (a nod to their 1979 song "Cheap Sunglasses"). Gibbons and Hill wearing similar black clothing (usually biker leathers) and black cowboy hats or ball caps. Gibbons may wear black biker boots and neck chains with beer can openers. Although Gibbons and Hill wear chest-length beards, drummer Beard sports only a trimmed mustache.
The members of ZZ Top had previously played in other Texas-based groups, Gibbons in Moving Sidewalks, and Hill and Beard in American Blues. By 1969, both groups had disbanded. Gibbons invited Frank Beard to join his new group, a blues-rock foursome. Beard suggested his former band mate, "Dusty" Hill, and the band became a trio.
The origin of the band's name is claimed to be a hybrid of two popular brands of rolling paper, Zig-Zag and Top. It is also a tribute to blues legend Z. Z. Hill. However, Gibbons wrote in his autobigoraphy, Rock + Roll Gearhead, that it derives from the blues guitar master B. B. King. The band originally planned to call themselves Z.Z. King, but thought it seemed too similar. Since B.B. King was also at the "top", they chose ZZ Top.
Hometown
Houston, Texas
