They knew the discipline and the conventions of that most traditional of popular music forms. The incredible musical chemistry that the three musicians had discovered on their first meeting together was no small thing. “We will forever be connected to that blues shuffle in C,” he said, more than 50 years later, on hearing the news of his bandmate’s death. According to Gibbons, the song lasted for three uninterrupted hours. The first time the three of them got together, Dusty suggested they play a shuffle in C. When Rocky left the line-up, Frank and Dusty were on the lookout for a singer/ guitarist at the same time that Gibbons was looking for a new rhythm section for his fledgling project, a Houston-based trio called ZZ Top. Rocky, Dusty and Frank then formed a new band called the American Blues, who released a self-titled debut album in 1968. On the circuit they met a drummer called Frank Beard, who they quickly brought into he band, after which they recorded three locally released singles. In 1964 the teenaged brothers were gigging together in a band called Lady Wilde And The Warlocks, featuring a female singer from Liverpool. When the two of them began playing in bands together, Rocky made it clear to him that Dusty’s role would be as the bass player. When he was eight, Dusty was given a guitar for Christmas, but it was his elder brother, Rocky, who learned to play it. His mother, a gifted singer, worked as a waitress, and one of Dusty’s earliest musical memories was of her bringing home a copy of an Elvis Presley record from the jukebox in the diner where she worked, which he sang along to. Joseph Michael Hill was born in Dallas, Texas in 1949. “We’ll talk about splitting headaches and splitting hairs, but not splitting up,” Gibbons declared. While their commercial fortunes and recorded output declined somewhat in the new millennium, ZZ Top never stopped touring. In 2004 the band were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame by Keith Richards at a ceremony which they closed with a rousing rendition of Tush (their first US Top 20 single, released in 1975) sung with a typically boisterous swagger by Hill. With the help of a string of strikingly memorable promo videos accompanying the hits Gimme All Your Lovin’, Sharp Dressed Man and Legs, ZZ Top sealed a unique and indelible image in the popular imagination and earned themselves a rare diamond certification for sales in excess of 10 million copies of Eliminator in the USA alone. The trio’s ambition continued to grow, along with their beards, and with the release of their eighth album, Eliminator, in 1983 they became global stars of the MTV era. From humble beginnings in 1969 in Houston, ZZ Top initially toured their way to greatness in America and, by the time they mounted their Worldwide Texas Tour of 1976, had become one of the biggest stadium acts in the land.

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