Mizz-SEC

Going down a steep hill and losing my brakes.

Frank Beard, ZZ Top Drummer, Dies at 77

The long-tenured timekeeper for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame blues-rock trio was a key part of one of the longest-lasting consistent band lineups in rock history.

By Andrew Unterberger

Frank Beard, drummer with rock greats ZZ Top for 56 years, died on Monday (Aug. 17). A press release from longtime band publicist Bob Merlis confirmed his passing on Tuesday, stating that Beard was “in hospice care when he passed away at his ranch in Richmond, TX with family members at his side.” He was 77.

Beard had served as stickman for the Texas blues-rock trio since 1969, when he made the jump from the more psychedelic-oriented local group American Blues to ZZ Top. At that point, the latter group consisted of Beard, singer-guitarist Billy Gibbons and bassist Billy Ethridge. After Ethridge quit the band and was replaced by Dusty Hill, the band’s power-trio lineup was locked in, and would not change for the next half-century.

ZZ Top became national rock stars in the mid-’70s with the release of Tres Hombres, with Beard’s explosive-but-swinging drumming playing a huge part in the band’s sonic identity. While “La Grange,” the album’s breakout hit single and a future classic-rock radio staple, is perhaps best remembered for Gibbons’ limber guitar riffing and haw-haw-haw vocal sleaze, equally crucial was Beard’s frisky stick-tapping on the song’s intro and clipped gallop on its main groove.

The trio found continued success throughout the late ’70s and early ’80s, hitting the Billboard Hot 100’s top 40 with the horny rave-up “Tush” and the spiky Sam + Dave cover “I Thank You.” During this time, Beard struggled with substance abuse, with the band going on hiatus in the late ’70s as Beard dealt with his issues. He got clean in the early ’80s, and shortly after, ZZ Top really went into mid-’80s commercial overdrive, thanks largely to the advent of MTV — a format not often charitable to the AOR rockers of yesteryear, but one that ZZ Top embraced with particular élan, becoming music video icons as the mystical hairy dudes with the fuzzy guitars, the cool car and the hot chicks. (Ironically, Beard was the one member of the group to go clean-shaven; “Frank’s beard is on his driver’s license,” quipped Gibbons.)

ZZ Top’s 1983 album Eliminator spawned a trio of MTV smashes (“Gimme All Your Lovin,” “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs”) and would ultimately be certified diamond by the RIAA, becoming the group’s biggest album. While Beard’s drumming on the set was somewhat smoothed out by the group’s increasingly processed, new wave-friendlier sound, he still helped provide the singles much-needed muscle and backbone under the shiny guitars and synths. (Beard also got married for the second time shortly before the album’s release, with he and wife Debbie Meredith remaining together — with twin sons Rory and Nico born in 1985 — until his death.)

After Eliminator, the band released the similarly crossover-friendly Afterburner in 1985, with similar (if slightly less spectacular) multi-platinum results. By the time the band returned for a new album five years later, with 1990’s Recycler, the band was looking to make more of a return to their blues-rock roots, and was slightly out of step with the rock and pop of the time. ZZ Top’s days as top 40 hitmakers were done, though the trio continued to sell respectably and chart on Mainstream Rock Airplay through the ’90s.

The group released two albums in the 21st century, 2003’s Mescalero and 2012’s La Futura, and continued to tour with the same three-man lineup it had held since 1969, the longtime consistency of its lineup an extreme rarity among popular rock bands. In 2004, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2019, it was the subject of the Netflix documentary That Little Ol’ Band From Texas. Sadly, the group was finally forced into lineup changes with the death of Hill in 2021, with longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis replacing him at live performances. Now, with Beard’s death, Gibbons remains the lone living member from the group’s classic lineup.

“Today, Elwood and I lost a great friend and collaborator, and the world lost one of the most naturally innovative drummers and a great and true son of Texas,” Gibbons says of his bandmate of 68 years in the press release. “His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top. The band of which he was part for six decades is going to keep on keeping on as he had wished.”

The release also states that Beard’s death “necessitates the cancellation of ZZ Top tour dates that had been scheduled for [Aug. 18] in Salt Lake City and [Aug. 19] in Colorado Springs,” but that the band “will resume its current The Big One! Tour this weekend with two dates in at Austin City Limits, one of Frank’s favorite venues and in a city that had been something of a second home for him.”

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Bring Back Billy Clubs

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