Matt Dusty Hill is ZZ’s top guitarist. The blues rock band announced on their Facebook page. Accordingly, Hill slept peacefully on Wednesday at his Texas ranch at the age of 72. Other band members Billy Gibbons and Frank Bird said, “We, along with legions of big ZZ fans around the world, will miss your presence, your good nature and your enduring commitment.” “We will miss you so much, Amigo.”
The band was last week on your website He reported that Hill was returning to his farm to recover from illness. He is expected to recover soon.
ZZ Top was founded in the summer of 1969 in Houston/Texas. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the old blues masters in 2019, Hills and Gibbons’ long beards have long been musicians’ trademarks—just like the band’s signature guitar tracks. “Some people wear fake beards to camouflage, unfortunately we couldn’t,” Hill joked in an interview. “Wherever you go, you immediately attract a crowd.”
Commercial boom in 1973
The commercial breakthrough came in 1973 with the movie “Tres Hombres”. His third studio album is now considered a classic. Gibbons, Hill, and Bird only released six albums in the 1970s. In Germany they made some appearances at that time, in the USA they completed the huge “Texas World Tour” with about 100 concerts from 1976 to 1977.
The biggest turning point of their career came in the 1980s when Gibbons first experimented with what was then known as an all-new Fairlight. After the first electronic trials on the only moderately successful “El Loco” (1981), the ZZ Top hit a milestone two years later—but not everyone loves it.
With synthesizers, computers, and sequencers, they updated their rock sound, reinvented themselves, and in 1983 released the powerful, pulsating “eliminator.” Die Hard Blues fans accused the group of treason. But the sales figures prove correct. “Eliminator” is to this day the most commercially successful album of the band “Little Ol’ Band From Texas”.
2004 ZZ Top was in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame registered. “These cats are as deeply penetrated by blues as I am,” said Keith Richards, guitarist for the Rolling Stones, in his praise.
