It was announced today that Frank Beard, ZZ Top’s drummer for the past 56 years, has died. He was in hospice care when he passed away at his ranch in Richmond, TX with family members at his side. Beard, together with guitarist Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill were one of music’s most enduring line-ups continuing until 2021 when Hill’s passing saw Elwood Francis join the band, who have continued to tour throughout North America, Europe and South America to this day.
It was Frank Beard who, in the waning days of 1969, suggested to Billy Gibbons – then a frontman in search of a rhythm section – to audition Dusty Hill. Beard had played with Hill previously in a Dallas-based band called American Blues, and in The Warlocks, Hustlers and Cellar Dwellers before that. The three got together at Gibbons’ Houston home and proceeded to jam non-stop for three hours. “It was a blues in D, a shuffle,” recalls Gibbons, “and we just didn’t want to stop . . . and we didn’t for the next five or six decades.” This trio played its first show before a paying audience at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Beaumont, TX on February 10, 1970. They went on to a recording career that included eleven gold albums (seven of which were certified platinum), plus two platinum video albums. The band’s epochal Eliminator album also achieved Diamond status, in recognition of more than ten million copies sold.
Frank Lee Beard was born on June 11,1949 in Frankston, TX and was raised in Irving, TX, where he attended Irving High School. Inspired by The Beatles and then the blues, he got a set of drums and soon met Dusty Hill; the saga of ZZ Top followed thereafter. He told Rock’s Backpages, “When I was about fifteen I started to play [drums] and then I discovered all the blues joints in Dallas where you could hear a lot of great players like Freddie King.” He and Hill backed Lightnin’ Hopkins at folk venues in those formative years solidifying his connection to the blues tradition that continued through his years anchoring ZZ Top.
In the early part of his professional career, Beard battled addiction and substance abuse, but after ZZ Top took a years-long hiatus, he returned sober and never looked back. He went on to marry the former Debbie Meredith in 1982; their twin boys, Rory and Nico, were born in 1985.
ZZ Top founder Billy F Gibbons commented on Beard’s passing, “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. 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.”
While the other members of ZZ Top are known for their flowing beards, Frank Beard, ironically, went mostly clean shaven with Gibbons suggesting “Frank’s beard is on his driver’s license.” The longevity of ZZ Top as a band, in contrast to most other groups who don’t last as long, was acknowledged in a comment Frank conveyed to Kerrang! journalist Sylvie Simmons, “First and foremost, I guess it’s because there’s only three of us, so there’s only two other guys to argue with.” He also told her about the band’s singular sound for which he was a key component, “If we played a soul song or a country song, whatever song we played, it would sound like ZZ Top. We’ve tried playing songs that don’t sound like ZZ Top.” Regarding the seminal music videos which figured into ZZ Top’s iconography, he allowed, “I always thought that the videos gave the public a glimpse into ZZ Top, a true insight into what the band was about: which is just three guys that have very guy interests — we like cars, we like girls and we like music.”
Frank Beard’s passing necessitates the cancellation of ZZ Top tour dates that had been scheduled for tonight in Salt Lake City and Wednesday’s show in Colorado Springs. 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.
