{"id":1099564,"date":"2026-07-20T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T00:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1099564\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T00:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T00:01:16","slug":"the-1950s-artist-who-kick-started-billy-gibbons-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1099564\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1950s artist who kick-started Billy Gibbons’ career"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Billy<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

Sun 19 July 2026 22:00, UK <\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to forget that ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons<\/a> is actually a bit of a young buck in the rock and roll game.<\/p>\n

Born in 1949, the Houstonian boogie guitar player was barely out of high school when opening for Jimi Hendrix in his old Moving Sidewalks band, soaking up some of the psych emitted from fellow Texan jug-rockers The 13th Floor Elevators. Before he was even 30, the beard grew and marked ZZ Top\u2019s defining visual identity, and an embrace of drum machines and glossy synths positioned the hard blues outfit in a weird orbit of the era\u2019s new wave.<\/p>\n

The point is, ZZ Top are a funny old band that\u2019s both tethered to an authentic root of rustic Southern rock and young and curious enough to waltz into pop\u2019s contemporary trends to land as unlikely stars of the 1980s MTV landscape. Vintage enough to hold a connection to the old bluesmen while possessed with a budding disregard for purist conventions, pinpointing exactly what led Gibbons to the road of rock isn\u2019t quite as clear-cut as his countercultural peers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s on record that Gibbons harbours just as much love for Jimmy Reed\u2019s electric blues as he does Depeche Mode\u2019s dramatic synthpop<\/a>. However, just as popular music\u2019s myriad branches can be followed to a unifying big bang, ultimately, Gibbons credits one foundational rock and roll icon with lighting that formative fuse to ZZ Top\u2019s world conquest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was five, I saw Elvis and I knew I wanted to spank the plank,\u201d Gibbons recalled to Thrasher Magazine. \u201cIt just looked like the coolest thing you could possibly do. A few days after my 13th birthday, I got a solid-body electric Gibson. That was the beginning of the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

It can\u2019t be overstated how seismic the King\u2019s impact was on the 1950s charts.<\/p>\n

While complicated by debates around stealing the Black man\u2019s music<\/a> and his route to fame unobstructed by the racial attitudes of the era, there\u2019s no question that once \u2018That\u2019s All Right\u2019 was cut at Sun and the Tennessee clubs were exposed to his sexually-charged on-stage antics, such a gripping alchemy of handsome allure, unabashed physical presence, rebellious spark, and a God-given knack for the blues and R&B all cemented an assured icon of not rock and roll, but the 20th century as a whole.<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gibbons was certainly hooked. It\u2019s never been verified which show he attended with his mother, possibly catching Presley at one of the 15 shows he performed in Houston throughout 1955, but even as a babe of just five years old, the King\u2019s force of nature would have left a formative impression on the young, pre-bearded Texas kid, enamoured with Presley\u2019s visual whirlwind just like any cartoon character or silver screen hero for the new era of pop.<\/p>\n

It was settled there and then. Amid the interim between rockabilly and the British Invasion, the teenage Gibbons unwrapped his sunburnt Gibson Melody Maker and Fender Champ in 1962 and sowed the seeds for his future rock stardom, a path paved by the King back when he really was the King.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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