Billy Gibbons was 20 years old when he formed ZZ Top, and the power trio has defined his life ever since. With the dawn of the ‘70s just over the horizon, Gibbons had shaped his band around two of his biggest influences ± Cream and Jimi Hendrix — in 1969, and his legacy might not still be being talked about today if it weren’t for the way they inspired the bright-eyed guitarist.
“Make no mistake, ZZ Top didn’t just happen upon becoming a trio because it was easier; it’s a lot more challenging,” he tells Classic Rock of the band’s origins. “Hendrix and Cream were at the top of the chart as far as ZZ Top’s book was concerned, and it was through those early influential days of attempting to emulate those sounds and styles that brought us together.”
The band’s foundations were laid while he was still strutting his stuff in his pre-ZZ outfit, Moving Sidewalks. Before the British blues explosion had properly ignited, Gibbons was turned on by the psychedelic sounds of Roky Erikson’s 13th Floor Elevators, molding a very similar sound. Their less-than-subtle nod of a single, "99th Floor," paved the way for a change-making touring opportunity.
“That release led to additional airplay and touring opportunities, including teaming up with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, who became our friends and mentors,” he told Guitar Player last year. “As I remember it, I played a Fender Jazzmaster through a Vox Super Beatle, and a Hohner harp through a Fender Bassman.”
Seeing Hendrix up close sparked something in Gibbons. It’s an experience he relives with CR.
“We toured with him in 1968. It was a real mind-bender and eye-opener, to say the least,” he remembers. “As most now know, Jimi Hendrix, either consciously or subconsciously, made a decision to invent things to do with a Fender Stratocaster that it had not necessarily been intended for. He did it very well, too.
“I was 18 at the time,” he details, “and somehow the organizers saw fit to book us in the hotel room across the hall to his room. That was convenient to ask him the obvious question: ‘How do you do that?’
“I remember that this was a long time before hotels had stereos in their rooms, and each day there would be the delivery of a rather heavy and cumbersome hi-fi console player that was the size of a small Buick. It was dutifully installed for Hendrix to be able to listen to his favorite discs.
“The one I really remember him playing the ass off,” Gibbons goes on, “was the first Jeff Beck Group album, Truth. Hendrix was mad about it, totally OTT [over the top] about Jeff’s playing.”
There’s a strange bittersweet irony in Hendrix’s Beck obsession. In search of a more receptive audience, he soon traveled to the UK and proceeded to blow everyone who laid eyes and ears on him away. So much so that Beck, a man who the guitarist was humbly obsessed with, considered quitting the business entirely.
“Oddly enough, Hendrix was all too willing and ready to include blues licks in his arsenal of guitar offerings, which had fallen out of favor in the States with most black entertainers,” Gibbons adds. “I got to play onstage with him at the time, but it was what went on behind the scenes that really captured the magic of the moment.”
And so, by the time the Moving Sidewalks disbanded a year later, Cream were at the height of their powers, and Hendrix was making serious waves on the other side of the Atlantic. Gibbons was keen to channel some of that energy into his new endeavor, with the things he learned from his hangs, on and of the stage, with Hendrix stuffed tightly into his back pocket.
Eric Clapton’s ZZ Top legacy can be seen slung around Gibbons’ shoulder every time he steps on stage; his ‘59 ‘Pearly Gates’ Les Paul. Seeing Clapton’s Sunburst Gibson Les Paul on the back cover of his Bluesbreakers record prompted him to track down the out-of-production guitar and own one for himself.
He too had taken a leaf out of Clapton’s book and decided to grow his fingernails, and that left its mark on his beloved electric guitar.
“What I hadn’t counted on was that the fingernail of the little finger started digging into the pickguard, leaving scratches,” he says.
Today, the Reverend is still going strong and says new music from ZZ Top – the first since bassist Dusty Hill’s passing – and his solo project, the BFGs is on the way. Without Hendrix and Cream’s influence, Gibbons may have never hopped off the psychedelic rock train and be the man that is so celebrated today.
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