The catalysts? “I saw Elvis Presley shaking his hips,” he says. By grade school, Billy had already concluded that he wanted to be a performer. His mother, Lorraine, did secretarial work for Lyndon Johnson. His father, Frederick Royal Gibbons, worked as a concert pianist and conducted the Freddie Gibbons Orchestra and the Gibbons Brothers Band. William Frederick Gibbons was born in the Houston suburb of Tanglewood on December 16, 1949. The words he told me early in the band’s career – “If we can just keep getting low-down, keep getting funky and playing them blues, we’ll always have a smile on our faces” – still hold true today. For Gibbons, though, the biggest thrills still come when ZZ Top hits the stage. He’s charismatic, generous, and funny, a passionate collector of classic cars, fine art, weird hats, rare records, and bizarre and beautiful guitars. He laces his conversation with sly innuendos, double entendres, and gentle Texas charm. Offstage, he carries himself with an almost professorial dignity, parsing his phrases carefully as he pulls on his foot-long beard. Equal parts storyteller, sage, fire-and-brimstone preacher, rollin’-and-tumblin’ bluesman, and rock guitar hero, Billy Gibbons has been entertaining family, friends, and fans for more than a half-century.
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