The Bottom of the Top: Remembering Dusty Hill
The bearded Texan who handled ZZ Top's low end for over 50 years left us four years ago today.
Once in 1984, the gap year between Eliminator and Afterburner, Dusty Hill accidentally shot himself in the abdomen with his Derringer when it fell from his boot. He then drove himself to the hospital, ultimately making a full recovery. It was just another day in the life of the long-bearded Texan from East Dallas.
Billy F. Gibbons may have been the mouthpiece, the cool daddy-o, the guiding vision of ZZ Top, but his literal right-hand man for more than 50 years, who kept the boom in the room while riding atop Gibbons’s low growl with a high lonesome holler, was the bassman Joe Michael “Dusty” Hill.
Of course, along with Frank Beard behind the kit, Gibbons and Hill would take the best—and weirdest—part of Texas with them worldwide for a half century. Their sound may have been dressed up and tweaked a tad to fit in with—or sometimes anticipate—current trends, for better (Eliminator) or worse (Recycler), but ultimately it remained the same three-chord down-and-dirty rockin’ blues they started with. If Texas BBQ were a sound, it’d be ZZ Top.
Dusty offered the perfect counterpoint to Billy’s John Lee Hooker-meets-Howlin’ Wolf infatuations. Hill hollered and squawled, shouting like a backwoods preacher converted to singing the gospel of soul, blues, and even a little touch of bluegrass yelp. And that bass! In a trio, there’s no place to hide, you’ve got to fill the space, or know when to let it breathe, and Dusty knew where—and where not—to land in the mix.
Here’s to one-third of the baddest, bluesiest rock’n’roll band to ever hail from the Lone Star state. Let’s celebrate Dusty Hill with some of his best moments on record. Some feature his vocals, while others are just badass bass parts. Many are both, of course. So, let’s turn the lights down low and have a party on the patio.
Apple Music users can access the ‘Dusty’s Best’ Mixtape here.
Dusty was a class act. Years ago I was subbing in a band that was playing on a festival date that ZZ Top were headlining. One of their buses was parked across from our crappy van and Dusty came off the bus dressed in his silk pajamas and slippers and hung out with us for about 15 minutes. We were sitting in the parking lot in the heat by the van because we had ben booted out of the backstage area by another band's manager. Our guitar player was living in Austin at the time and had a few shared acquaintances in Austin with Dusty and the guitarist started asking Dusty if he'd be interested in playing bass on his album he was working on. Dusty was gracious and let him down easy but he did took pity on us and let us sit on his bus in the AC before we went on.
I'm sure you know the tale but worth repeating: in the 60s an unscrupulous promoter had a fake Zombies touring the US and Dusty was one of them. When quizzed about this decades later he said something along the lines of "oh man, I don't remember. It was the '60s!"