Dusty Hill: the Warlocks, Tush and the bottom end of ZZ Top | Highway to Hell

Why fans still care

DUSTY HILL was half of the engine room in a trio that sounded far bigger than three people. He held down the bottom, sang high when a song needed it, and stood beside Billy Gibbons, Who’s Who number 10, for more than 50 years. Eliminator went Diamond, and La Grange has passed 960 million plays on Spotify.

Early life

He was born in Dallas on 19 May 1949. As a teenager he was playing bass in Dallas bands, including the Warlocks and American Blues. The players he looked to were Jack Bruce of Cream, with Stanley Clarke and Charles Mingus for “a little jazz”.

Career chapters

1. 1966 to 1968the Warlocks, the Cellar Dwellers and American Blues, with Frank Beard
2. By 1970in ZZ Top with Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard
3. 1973Tres Hombres and La Grange
4. 1975Fandango!, with Tush, his lead vocal
5. 1983Eliminator
6. 1985Afterburner
7. 1990Back to the Future Part III
8. 2004Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
9. 2013Fender Gold Top Dusty Hill Precision
10. 2021Elwood Francis takes over on bass

Dallas 1960s

From 1966 to 1968 he and Frank Beard played together in Dallas bands, among them the Warlocks, the Cellar Dwellers and American Blues. In 1969 Beard joined Gibbons’s new band in Houston and suggested Hill on bass, and by late 1969 Hill was in.

The Texas records 1970s

Tres Hombres went Gold in 1974, Fandango! in 1975 and Tejas in 1977. Tush, on Fandango!, has Hill singing lead, high and loud.

Eliminator and the video years 1980s

Eliminator came out in 1983 and went on to Diamond. Afterburner followed in 1985 and went 5x Platinum. In the UK, Gimme All Your Lovin’ reached number 10, Legs 16 and Sleeping Bag 27.

The film and the long road 1990 to 2021

ZZ Top turned up in Back to the Future Part III in 1990 and wrote Doubleback for it. In 2004 Keith Richards, Ultimate Guitarist Reunion number 31, inducted the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fender’s Custom Shop made 50 Gold Top Dusty Hill Precision basses in 2013. Hill died in 2021. Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard kept the band going, with Hill’s guitar tech Elwood Francis on bass, as Hill had asked.

Craft, sound and style

Serving the song

“You have to do the song, not your personal performance,” he told For Bass Players Only in 2016. In a trio, he said, bass and drums can lay down a foundation that’s “hard to crack”. Vintage Guitar called the result a “double-wide bottom end”.

The basses

A 1953 Fender Precision did most of the work for decades, until he retired it in 2012. From 1983 there was also a Dean Explorer-style bass with a sheepskin finish. Later he played chambered slab-body basses built by John Bolin, in the style of a 1950s Precision. His tech Elwood Francis described them in 2015: Babicz bridges and stacked Seymour Duncan Precision pickups.

The Gold Top

Fender’s Limited Edition Gold Top Dusty Hill Precision, announced in September 2013, had an okume body, a one-piece maple neck, a reversed headstock, 21 frets on a 34 inch scale, and a Seymour Duncan Stacked P pickup.

The voice

He’d been singing since he was about eight. Tush and Hi-Fi Mama show the high register. Gibbons once told him his voice could “sing the calendar”.

Stories people still tell

1. Interpreters, not a blues band.

   “We never said we were a blues band. We are interpreters of the blues,” Hill said in the 2019 documentary.

2. Learning in public.

   He was gigging at 13 and learned the job on stage. “Embarrassment is a great motivator,” he said in 2016.

Legacy

ZZ Top entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. Fellow bassist Dave Schools said Hill showed how massive a three-piece could be. Rodney Crowell said bands of that kind were all channelling him.