Dusty Hill, bassist for Texas blues rock trio ZZ Top, has passed away at the age of 72. A statement from the band earlier today said that the musician had passed away in his sleep at his Houston home, though no specific cause of death was mentioned.
Born Joe Michael Hill in Dallas, he, Gibbons and Beard formed ZZ Top in Houston in 1969. The band released its first album, titled “ZZ Top’s First Album,” in 1970. Three years later it scored its breakthrough hit, “La Grange,” which is an ode to the Chicken Ranch, a notorious brothel outside of a Texas town by that name.
The band went on to chart the hits “Tush” in 1975, “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs” and “Gimme All Your Lovin’” in 1983, and “Rough Boy” and “Sleeping Bag” in 1985.
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.
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. Said Rolling Stones lead guitarist Keith Richards in introducing the band to the Hall: “These cats are steeped in the blues, so am I. 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 the two frontmen sporting long, wispy beards (ironically drummer Frank Beard has historically sported the least amount of facial hair among the trio) — became so iconic as to be the subject of a New Yorker cartoon and a joke on “The Simpsons.”
A July 21 post on the band’s website said that Hill was “on a short detour back to Texas, to address a hip issue.” At that time, the band said its longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, would fill in on bass, slide guitar and harmonica.
Source: Associate Press (AP)