But the thing with this band that we noticed early on is that the three of us, independent of each other, listened to a lot of the same radio shows. “And I’d bring Muddy Waters or Son House or something, and the parents of these other kids would almost freak out – ‘What the fuck are you bringing here?’ Whoa! I thought everybody had these records, because that’s what I had. “Back then, kids would go to each others’ houses, bring some records to play,” he said. He’d grown up in a household where his mother listened to the blues, which wasn’t true of every white family but turned out to be something he shared with his future bandmates. He was marked out as musically weird from childhood. But however much crap you got about it, you got tenfold back in experience, because there’s so much music down there.” I’d bring Muddy Waters or Son House or something, and the parents of these other kids would almost freak out I got probably less shit about having blue hair than about having long hair, because I believe they thought I was crazy. “I was with a group called the American Blues, and at that time we had long, blue hair – in the 60s in Texas. “Being a musician in Texas had its own set of risks,” he told me. And when Hill started playing music in the 1960s, that act alone was enough to mark him as an outsider in the Lone Star State. Instead, they were Texans, with everything that conveyed: part traditional, part contrary, and part of the deep seam of Texas weirdness that stretched from the 13th Floor Elevators through to the Butthole Surfers. Hill and ZZ Top came from the blues, but neither Hill nor the band were the simple 12-bar boogiers they were often portrayed as. And, perhaps even more importantly, the pair came as a double act, not just by looking so similar they could be mistaken for one another but also in the perfect, minimalist choreography of their stage show (“Low energy, high impact,” as Hill described it to me, later that afternoon in Maryland). He sang lead or co-lead on several of ZZ Top’s best loved songs – his high, true tenor a contrast to Gibbons’ radioactive growl – and his bass tone was every bit as crucial to their sound as Gibbons’ guitar. But Hill, who died in his sleep aged 72, was just as important. Gibbons tended to be the focus of attention: he was the guitarist he took most of the lead vocals he was the band’s great and delightful eccentric.
“Billy, can I get a photo with you?” But Dusty Hill clearly didn’t like being mistaken for Billy Gibbons, who stood a few feet away from him on stage with ZZ Top for more than 50 years, and he walked away without a word. In 2012, backstage at a strange festival in Maryland, I watched as drunk twentysomethings walked up to a man with a vast beard, eyes hidden behind shades. I may grab his stage hat and throw it over his microphone, and I’ll sing one for the Dust.D usty Hill was evidently used to being mistaken for someone else. night, we’ll kind of pick up sticks and carry it on. He turned and pointed and he said, ‘Come on. You heard Dusty’s directive as he was bowing out to go off the deck. But at the same time, everybody was ready, standing on point. “I think everybody was relieved that we had a little bit of time to regroup and think things through. ZZ Top were scheduled to perform July 28th, but opted to postpone that gig “to get our wits together,” Gibbons told Variety in an interview after Hill’s death.
On July 28th, the band announced that Hill died in his sleep at his home in Houston, Texas at the age of 72. Francis had served as Hill’s substitute in recent weeks after Hill left the ZZ Top in order to deal with a hip issue.
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