Birthplace: They were formed in 1970 in and around Houston
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2 albums available (31 total tracks)
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Last viewed on 12/31/2008 5:53 PM
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Every girl's crazy about a sharp dressed man. . .with a beard and a cherry red 1933 Ford coupe. At least that's what ZZ Top proclaimed to the MTV-viewing public through their smart, sarcastic and sexy music videos from Eliminator: "Gimme All Your Lovin'," "Legs," "TV Dinners" and, of course, "Sharp Dressed Man." Topping record charts for more than three years straight, breaking concert attendance records set by the Beatles and garnering praise from Jimi Hendrix, ZZ Top sports impressive credentials for a "Little Ol' Band from Texas."
The bearded blues brothers began playing rock 'n' roll on February 10,1970, when guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and bassist Dusty Hill jammed as a three-piece band for the first time. Houston-born Gibbons grew up mimicking the rhythm and blues styles of Elvis Presley and James Brown before joining a psychedelic combo called the Moving Sidewalks in1967. The band scored a local hit with "99th Floor" and opened for the JimiHendrix Experience in 1968. Then the Vietnam War draft snatched Gibbons' bandmates away and turned him on to the American Blues Band, where he first met Hill and Beard.
A Lone Star favorite, ZZ Top failed to break into the mainstream with their debut LP, First Album. The next two records spawned two national hits and earned the band an invitation to open for the Rolling Stones in1972. Prosperity continued with 1975's Fandango, which stayed on the charts for 83 weeks and sold more than a million copies.
In 1976 ZZ Top embarked on the lavish, odd-ball World-Wide Texas Tour in support of the album Tejas. Literally carting bits of the state along with them, the band brought live cattle, bison, rattlesnakes and cactus on stage - all of which helped gross more than $11.5 million, making the tour one of the most successful ever at the time. Primed for the next huge step forward, the Top then stunned critics and fans by taking three-year-long vacation.
ZZ Top marked their 1979 return by signing with the Warner Bros. and releasing Deguello, arguably the band's best performance of biting blues and raucous rhythm. But God forbid ZZ Top should rest on its laurels. In1983 the band broke new ground with the experimental and catchy rock album Eliminator, which sold 10 million copies, peaked in Billboard's charts at No. 9 and remained in the Top 20 for more than a year. This sustained popularity was due in part to the band's clever use of the burgeoning cable channel MTV to construct a hip and endearing image. ZZ Top videos, replete with the '33 Ford and bearded bad boys, became MTV staples and icons of the age.
Straying from their blues roots, ZZ Top then meshed the world of drum machines, sequencers and computer sampling with Gibbon's familiar guitar crunch on the 1985 album Afterburner, which yielded the singles "Rough Boy," "Sleeping Bag" and "Velcro Fly." Then the old Ford started coasting downhill as the band's next two original albums failed to make a mark on the charts.
After another hiatus of a few years, ZZ Top returned in 1990 with the critically well - received album Recycler. While the none of the band's efforts in the ensuing decade ( have quite matched their earlier triumphs, the band remains a solid draw on the concert circuit; and, if albums like their latest, XXX (1999), are any indication, they haven't forgotten their musical roots.
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