ZZ Top

ZZ Top is a rock band, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, from Houston, Texas. The band members are Billy Gibbons (vocals and guitar, of Moving Sidewalks),

ZZ Top is a rock band, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, from Houston, Texas. The band members are Billy Gibbons (vocals and guitar, of Moving Sidewalks), Dusty Hill (bass, of The American Blues) and Frank Beard (drums, of The Cellar Dwellers, The Hustlers, and The American Blues).

As well as a distinctive guitar sound and hard-driving, innuendo-laced lyrics (many of which are about places and events in their home state of Texas), the band is probably best known for its distinctive look. Gibbons and Hill are always pictured wearing sunglasses, trenchcoats and their trademark waist-length beards. (Frank Beard, ironically, does not wear a beard.) In 1984, the Gillette company offered Gibbons and Hill $1 million apiece to shave their beards for a commercial, but they declined. The origin of the name of the band is apparently not offically known. Some theories include: the two brands of rolling-paper, Zig-Zag and Top; a tribute to blues legend Z.Z. Hill; Z-shaped barn-door braces Gibbons once saw at a farm; and/or Billy Gibbons seeing the two words running together on a dilapidated bill board. The first ideas were "ZZ Gibbons" and "ZZ Hill", but were later rejected in favor of "ZZ Top".