Two guys with beards, and a guy called Beard who doesn’t have a beard. Those 1980s videos. The car. The keyring. The furry, twirling guitars from Back To The Future III... To many people those things are the essence of the self-styled Li’l Ole Band From Texas.
But such memorable images are far from being the band’s only contribution to rock. ZZ Top – Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard – are certainly among America’s musical elite; a band who took blues rock, gave it a Texan tweak, and have for 50 years made gutsy music that amuses, amazes and gets your body moving.
From their Houston beginnings in 1969 when guitarist Gibbons, then with The Moving Sidewalks, teamed up with bassist Hill and drummer Beard from The American Blues, ZZ have defied convention. They made such an impact with their first three albums – ZZ Top’s First Album, Rio Grande Mud and Tres Hombres – that they were soon one of the biggest live attractions in the US. In the mid-70s they proudly had a map of Texas as their stage flooring, and had cacti and corralled livestock on stage with them.
After 1976’s Tejas, the trio decided on a three-year break, returning in 1979 with the Deguello album, by which time both Gibbons and Hill had grown those trademark beards.
In the UK, ZZ Top remained a cult phenomenon... until 1983’s Eliminator appeared from out of nowhere and rearranged the charts. The logic was simple: easy-on-the-ear songs, a modern production, and MTV-friendly videos that had a potent mix of sex, laughs and hardware. Suddenly ZZ Top were everywhere. Like Aerosmith and Alice Cooper would do later in the decade, ZZ had reinvented themselves. And with staggering success.
Of course, it was never going to last. Within a few years their commercial star was on the wane – at least as far as record sales were concerned. It didn’t bother them. They even survived a scare when Hill inadvertently shot himself in the chest while taking off a boot (don’t ask).
ZZ Top have become a treasured American institution; icons who love to upset the establishment. And as of 2012's La Futura, they're still making great music. Here, we cast our eye over their back catalogue and highlight the essential albums to own.