It’s nearly 12 months since the death of his bass playing “compadre” Dusty Hill, signalling the end after 51 years of the longest unchanging line-up in rock history. Gibbons is having some downtime from ZZ Top’s Raw Whisky arena tour of the States when I give him a call. NOT IMPRESSED Furious I’m A Celebrity viewers brand campmate ‘fake and desperate' That’s not unlike the way we approach things.” “They cut up (American slang for ‘played the fools’) from day one but they’ve always managed to maintain a serious edge to everything they do. “But let’s not leave out the grand leaders who still remain, the Rolling Stones,” he adds. By that, he means how ZZ Top transformed blues rock into infectious full-tilt boogies with their own unique sound. “We’ve always held on to that which brought us to the party in the first place,” he decides. We just stood at the side of the road!” Despite the familiar ZZ Top image of “sharp dressed men” with big beards, beautiful girls and THAT car, he maintains that “there has always been an underlying edge of seriousness” to the music. “Once it was on MTV, the girls got to drive it more than the band. “I wish I’d spent more time driving it before it became a star of stage and screen. “We can’t ignore the celebrity success of that little red car,” affirms Gibbons. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and a fundraiser for the Delta Blues Museum.BEY'S LADY GO-DIVA Bejewelled Beyoncé channels Lady Godiva on racy new album cover ‘Edge of seriousness’ The band members have supported campaigns and charities including Childline, St. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Gibbons the 32nd greatest guitarist of all time. They have won three MTV Video Music Awards, and in 2004, the members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ZZ Top has released 15 studio albums and sold an estimated 50 million albums worldwide. Per Hill's wishes, he was replaced by their longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis on bass. By the time of Hill's death in 2021, ZZ Top had become the longest-running band with an unchanged lineup in the history of popular music. They most recently released La Futura (2012) and Goin' 50 (2019), a compilation album commemorating the band's 50th anniversary. The Afterburner tour set records for the highest-attended and highest-grossing concert tour of 1986.Īfter gaining additional acclaim with the release of their tenth album Recycler (1990), and its accompanying tour, the group's experimentation continued with mixed success on the albums Antenna (1994), Rhythmeen (1996), XXX (1999), and Mescalero (2003). The popularity of these albums' music videos, including those for " Gimme All Your Lovin'", " Sharp Dressed Man", and " Legs", gave them mass exposure on television channel MTV and made them prominent artists in 1980s pop culture. They established a more mainstream sound and gained international success with Eliminator (1983) and Afterburner (1985), which integrated influences from new wave, punk, and dance-rock. With the album El Loco (1981), they began to experiment with synthesizers and drum machines. By the mid-1970s, ZZ Top had become renowned in North America for its live act, including the Worldwide Texas Tour (1976- 1977), which was a critical and commercial success.Īfter a hiatus, ZZ Top returned in 1979 with a new musical direction and image, with Gibbons and Hill wearing sunglasses and matching chest-length beards. Subsequent releases, such as Tres Hombres (1973) and Fandango! (1975), and the singles " La Grange" and " Tush", gained extensive radio airplay. Within a year, they signed with London Records and released ZZ Top's First Album (1971). ZZ Top formed after the demise of Moving Sidewalks, Gibbons' previous band, in 1969.
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