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Dusty Hill, Dead At 72, Was One Great Texas Boogie Woogie Bass Boy.
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Gregory Carr
Jul 28, 2021, 11:17:42 PM7/28/21
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Dusty Hill, of ZZ Top, performs during the Crossroads Guitar Festival on June 26, 2010, in Chicago. ZZ Top has announced that Hill, one of the Texas blues trio's bearded figures and bassist, has died at his Houston home. He was 72. In a Facebook post, bandmates Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard revealed Wednesday, July 29, 2021, that Hill had died in his sleep. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File)
HOUSTON -- ZZ Top's Dusty Hill, the long-bearded bassist for the million-selling Texas blues rock trio known for such hits as "Legs" and "Gimme All Your Lovin'," has died at age 72.
In a Facebook post Wednesday, guitarist Billy Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard said Hill died in his sleep. They didn't give a cause of death, but a July 21 post on the band's website said Hill was "on a short detour back to Texas, to address a hip issue." At that time, the band said that its longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, would fill in on bass, slide guitar and harmonica.
Born Joe Michael Hill in Dallas, he, Gibbons and Beard formed ZZ Top in Houston in 1969, naming themselves in part after blues singer Z.Z. Hill and influenced by the British power trio Cream. Their debut release, "ZZ Top's First Album," came out in 1970. Three years later, they broke through commercially with "La Grange," a funky blues song in the style of Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips" that paid tribute to the Chicken Ranch, a notorious brothel outside of the Texas town of La Grange.
The band went on to have such hits as "Tush" in 1975, and the 1980s songs "Sharp Dressed Man," "Legs," "Gimme All Your Lovin"' and "Sleeping Bag." The band's 1976 "Worldwide Texas Tour," with its iconic Texas-shaped stage festooned with cactuses, snakes and longhorn cattle, was one of the decade's most successful rock tours. Their million-selling albums included "Eliminator," "Afterburner" and "Antenna."
ZZ Top was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, introduced by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.
"These cats are steeped in the blues, so am I," Richards said. "These cats know their blues and they know how to dress it up. When I first saw them, I thought, `I hope these guys are not on the run, because that disguise is not going to work."'
That look, with all three members wearing dark sunglasses and Gibbons and Hill sporting long, wispy beards, became so familiar, in part thanks to their MTV videos in the 1980s, that it was the subject of a New Yorker cartoon and a joke on "The Simpsons."
Correction:
An earlier version of this story was corrected to reflect that ZZ Top was formed in 1969, not the late 1970s.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/zz-top-bearded-bassist-dusty-hill-dies-in-his-sleep-at-72-1.5526742
I saw them twice once at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton in 1986 for the Afterburner tour and then again at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver for the Antenna tour. Bought souvenir t-shirts at both shows although at the second show I only paid $5 for a bootleg shirt still have it. I met Dusty Hill after the Afterburner show I went to the nearby Forum Inn as I knew the bartender their since we used to work together at the Saxony Motor Inn. He wasn't on shift but I sat at the bar as the room rapidly filled up with ppl from the concert. After a few minutes Dusty Hill arrived with his entourage holding two bass guitars aloft he was of course wildly cheered. The band invited him to play but he said he only would play if given $50,000 or something like that. The only seat left in the bar was next to mine the bar manager offered me some free drinks to wander somewhere else but I declined. Dusty ended up sitting next to me and he was a school as you would expected a member of ZZ Top to be. I bought him some drinks, so did the bar manager and other ppl. He often laughed his big laugh. "I get paid lots of money, travel the world, party and get free drinks and get to fuck lots of pussy." I told him I lived nearby and I would like to go there and get my ZZ Top Afterburner album and return and get him to sign it. He said sure and I returned around 20 minutes later but he was gone. The saxophone player told me he had gone upstairs to get a blowjob and that he would be back sure enough Dusty returned with a large but attractive woman. He signed my Afterburner album a couple times including, "We Were Delirious" he also signed my concert ticket which I unfortunately threw away during a psychiatric episode around 2005. My sibling got a real kick when I told him I met Dusty.
HOUSTON -- ZZ Top's Dusty Hill, the long-bearded bassist for the million-selling Texas blues rock trio known for such hits as "Legs" and "Gimme All Your Lovin'," has died at age 72.
In a Facebook post Wednesday, guitarist Billy Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard said Hill died in his sleep. They didn't give a cause of death, but a July 21 post on the band's website said Hill was "on a short detour back to Texas, to address a hip issue." At that time, the band said that its longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, would fill in on bass, slide guitar and harmonica.
Born Joe Michael Hill in Dallas, he, Gibbons and Beard formed ZZ Top in Houston in 1969, naming themselves in part after blues singer Z.Z. Hill and influenced by the British power trio Cream. Their debut release, "ZZ Top's First Album," came out in 1970. Three years later, they broke through commercially with "La Grange," a funky blues song in the style of Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips" that paid tribute to the Chicken Ranch, a notorious brothel outside of the Texas town of La Grange.
The band went on to have such hits as "Tush" in 1975, and the 1980s songs "Sharp Dressed Man," "Legs," "Gimme All Your Lovin"' and "Sleeping Bag." The band's 1976 "Worldwide Texas Tour," with its iconic Texas-shaped stage festooned with cactuses, snakes and longhorn cattle, was one of the decade's most successful rock tours. Their million-selling albums included "Eliminator," "Afterburner" and "Antenna."
ZZ Top was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, introduced by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.
"These cats are steeped in the blues, so am I," Richards said. "These cats know their blues and they know how to dress it up. When I first saw them, I thought, `I hope these guys are not on the run, because that disguise is not going to work."'
That look, with all three members wearing dark sunglasses and Gibbons and Hill sporting long, wispy beards, became so familiar, in part thanks to their MTV videos in the 1980s, that it was the subject of a New Yorker cartoon and a joke on "The Simpsons."
Correction:
An earlier version of this story was corrected to reflect that ZZ Top was formed in 1969, not the late 1970s.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/zz-top-bearded-bassist-dusty-hill-dies-in-his-sleep-at-72-1.5526742
I saw them twice once at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton in 1986 for the Afterburner tour and then again at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver for the Antenna tour. Bought souvenir t-shirts at both shows although at the second show I only paid $5 for a bootleg shirt still have it. I met Dusty Hill after the Afterburner show I went to the nearby Forum Inn as I knew the bartender their since we used to work together at the Saxony Motor Inn. He wasn't on shift but I sat at the bar as the room rapidly filled up with ppl from the concert. After a few minutes Dusty Hill arrived with his entourage holding two bass guitars aloft he was of course wildly cheered. The band invited him to play but he said he only would play if given $50,000 or something like that. The only seat left in the bar was next to mine the bar manager offered me some free drinks to wander somewhere else but I declined. Dusty ended up sitting next to me and he was a school as you would expected a member of ZZ Top to be. I bought him some drinks, so did the bar manager and other ppl. He often laughed his big laugh. "I get paid lots of money, travel the world, party and get free drinks and get to fuck lots of pussy." I told him I lived nearby and I would like to go there and get my ZZ Top Afterburner album and return and get him to sign it. He said sure and I returned around 20 minutes later but he was gone. The saxophone player told me he had gone upstairs to get a blowjob and that he would be back sure enough Dusty returned with a large but attractive woman. He signed my Afterburner album a couple times including, "We Were Delirious" he also signed my concert ticket which I unfortunately threw away during a psychiatric episode around 2005. My sibling got a real kick when I told him I met Dusty.
Edward Jackson
Aug 1, 2021, 3:25:19 PM8/1/21
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Wonder if they are going to bury him in his fake beard?
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