Frank Beard ZZ Top death news has hit the rock world hard: Beard, the drummer who anchored the band’s sound across more than five decades, has died in hospice care at his ranch in Richmond, Texas, surrounded by his family. He was 77. Guitar World reports that the band’s representative, Bob Merlis, confirmed the news. No cause of death has been disclosed.
Billy Gibbons marked the loss in a statement. ‘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,’ he said. ‘His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top.’
Frank Beard ZZ Top Death: A Career in Full
Born Frank Lee Beard in 1949 in Frankston, Texas, he took up the drums as a teenager. His path to ZZ Top began in Dallas, where he met bassist Dusty Hill. The two started performing together at folk venues, backing country blues singer Lightnin’ Hopkins. When Beard joined ZZ Top in 1969, shortly after the group was founded, he immediately put Hill’s name forward to Gibbons as well. The trio played their first show together in 1970, at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Beaumont, Texas.
What followed was one of the most consistent runs in American rock: 11 gold albums melding blues, boogie, and rock. Their most commercially successful release, 1983’s Eliminator, sold more than 10 million copies. Beard’s mastery of the Texas shuffle drove the engine on hits such as ‘La Grange’ and ‘Tush’, giving ZZ Top a groove that was deceptively simple and virtually impossible to replicate.
ZZ Top were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, a recognition that arrived long after the music itself had done all the persuading necessary.
The Break, the Comeback, and the Later Years
Beard’s story was not without its darker passages. In 1976 he took a three-year break from the band, a period he later addressed with characteristic directness. ‘At the back of my mind I knew that I needed to kick heroin, I needed to stop doing cocaine,’ he said in the 2019 documentary ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band From Texas, adding: ‘I went to a 12-step program; I just wanted to get sober.’ He returned for 1979’s Degüello and never looked back.
As his health declined in recent years, Michael Monahan stepped in behind the kit to keep the band on the road, according to Ultimate Classic Rock. Beard continued to be part of the ZZ Top story even so, and the band pressed on with touring commitments.
Beard’s death comes a little more than five years after the passing of bassist Dusty Hill, the man he had first met in Dallas all those years ago and brought into the band he would spend his life playing in. The two had been together at the very beginning, backing Lightnin’ Hopkins before either of them had any idea what ZZ Top would become. Losing both within the space of five years leaves Gibbons as the sole surviving member of the classic line-up.
The Tour and What Comes Next
ZZ Top were mid-way through a US tour when Beard died. The band have cancelled upcoming shows in Salt Lake City, scheduled for 18 August, and Colorado Springs, scheduled for 19 August. Gibbons has confirmed the run will resume with two dates at Austin City Limits in October. ‘One of Frank’s favorite venues and in a city that had been something of a second home for him,’ Gibbons said of the Austin shows. The remaining dates stand as both a continuation and, in some sense, a tribute.
Beard spent more than 50 years keeping the beat for one of Texas’s most enduring bands. That backbeat, as Gibbons put it, was key. It still is.
