ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill has died at home in Texas aged 72, the band have announced.
His bandmates, 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.”
Among those paying tribute were Texas governor Greg Abbott who said Hill was “a remarkable Texan”.
Today we lost a great friend and a remarkable Texan.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) July 28, 2021
ZZ Top’s Bassist Dusty Hill Dead at 72
Truly a music legend. https://t.co/VVkJ67E7lN
Music publicist Eric Alper said the band brought the “blues + FUN into music that hasn’t been seen since”.
If you weren't there, you can't comprehend how BIG ZZ Top were in the 1980s and 1990s.
— Eric Alper 🎧 (@ThatEricAlper) July 28, 2021
“Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs” were on staples on MTV, concerts sold out, and brought the blues + FUN into music that hasn't been seen since.
Rest in peace, Dusty Hill. pic.twitter.com/5wUAjOuI8U
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, known for their long beards and bluesy rock, scored hits in the 1970s and 1980s including Legs and Gimme All Your Lovin’.
They celebrated their roots on their 1976 Worldwide Texas Tour with a stage in the shape of the southwestern state complete with cactuses, snakes and longhorn cattle.
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 with Rolling Stones lead guitarist Keith Richards saying: “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 — became so iconic as to be the subject of a New Yorker cartoon and a joke on The Simpsons.
