Dusty Hill (May 19, 1949 – July 28, 2021) was born Joe Michael “Dusty” Hill and was an American musician who was the bassist of the legendary rock band ZZ Top for more than 50 years. He also sang lead and backing vocals and played keyboards.
Dusty Hill was born in Dallas, Texas, and raised in the Lakewood neighborhood of East Dallas. He attended Woodrow Wilson High School, where he played the cello and grew up listening to blues music, which he said was uncommon in white families, and recalled shocking the parents of his childhood friends when he brought records by Muddy Waters or Son House to their houses.
Dusty Hill began singing for money with his brother Rocky at the age of 8. After Rocky formed a band with a drummer, Dusty took up bass at the age of 13.
Dusty Hill, his brother Rocky, and the future ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard played in various local Dallas bands including the Warlocks, the Cellar Dwellers, and American Blues.
From 1966 to 1968, American Blues played the Dallas-Fort Worth-Houston circuit.
In 1968, Rocky wanted to focus on “straight blues”, but Dusty Hill wanted the band to rock more. Rocky left and Dusty and Frank Beard moved to Houston. There they joined guitarist-vocalist Billy Gibbons, previously of the Houston psychedelic band Moving Sidewalks, in ZZ Top.
With Gibbons as the main lyricist and arranger, Dusty Hill played bass and keyboards and sang lead on some songs. With the assistance of manager Bill Ham and engineer Robin Hood Brians, “ZZ Top’s First Album” was released in 1971, and exhibited the band’s humor, with “barrelhouse” rhythms, distorted guitars, double entendres, and innuendo, and reflected ZZ Top’s blues influences.
ZZ Top released their second album “Rio Grande Mud” in 1972, which produced their first charting single, “Francine”.
On 1973’s “Tres Hombres”, ZZ Top developed its heavy blues style and amplified its roots in Texas music. The boogie rock single “La Grange” brought the band their first hit, just missing the Billboard Top 40.
In 1975, Dusty Hill sang lead vocal on “Tush”, the band’s first Top 20 hit and one of its most popular songs.
On the 1976 album “Tejas”, Dusty Hill took the vocal lead on “Pan Am Highway Blues”, “Avalon Hideaway” and “Ten Dollar Man”, and duetted with Gibbons on “It’s Only Love”.
In 1976, after almost seven years of touring and a string of successful albums, ZZ Top went on hiatus for three years while Frank Beard dealt with his addiction problems.
Dusty Hill spent this period working at Dallas Airport, saying he wanted to “feel normal” and “ground himself” after years spent performing. He was rarely recognized, but told fans who asked: “No! Do you think I’d be sitting here?”
In 1979, when the group returned with the album “Degüello”, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill revealed their new image of matching massive beards and sunglasses, which became their trademark look. Their hit singles from this period, “Cheap Sunglasses” and “Pearl Necklace”, showed a more modern sound.
In 1983, ZZ Top released “Eliminator”, a bestselling record which included “Gimme All Your Lovin'” and made the band “bona fide pop stars”, according to the Financial Times newspaper
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On December 16, 1984, Dusty Hill accidentally shot himself in the stomaach when his gun fell from his boot and discharged. He drove himself to a hospital before going into shock but made a full recovery.
Dusty Hill’s also appeared in “Back to the Future Part III”, “Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Rhyme2, and “Deadwood”, and appeared as himself in the eleventh-season episode of King of the Hill, “Hank Gets Dusted”, in which Hank Hill is said to be Dusty’s cousin, and made an appearance on “The Drew Carey Show” as himself, auditioning for a spot in Drew’s band, but was rejected because of his attachment to his beard, which he referred to as a “Texas Goatee”.
In 2000, Dusty Hill was diagnosed with hepatitis C and ZZ Top canceled their European tour, he resumed work in 2002.
Hill married his longtime girlfriend, the actress Charleen McCrory, in 2002 and they had one daughter.
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Dusty Hill was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of ZZ Top in 2004.
In 2014, Dusty Hill fell on his tour bus and injured his hip, requiring surgery and part of the tour was canceled.
On July 23, 2021, Dusty Hill left a tour due to problems with his hip, and ZZ Top performed with the band’s guitar tech Elwood Francis on bass per Hill’s request. Luckily Hill had already recorded bass and vocals for ZZ Top’s upcoming album.
Dusty Hill said he believed in God, but that he did not know “what or who God actually is”. He declined to say if he was a Republican or Democrat, and said: “I just tell them that I’m a Texan. Left to my own devices, I’d never leave Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas.”
Dusty Hill died at his home in Houston, Texas, on July 28, 2021 at the age of 72.
In line with his wishes, he was replaced in ZZ Top by the band’s longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis.
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