Billy Gibbons

Gibbons was born to Frederick Royal ("Freddie") and Lorraine (née Duffy) Gibbons in the Tanglewood neighborhood of Houston, Texas. His father was an entertainer, orchestra conductor, and concert pianist who worked alongside his second cousin, art director Cedric Gibbons, for Samuel Goldwyn at MGM Studios. When Gibbons was five years old, his mother took him and his sister to see Elvis Presley. At age seven, Gibbons's father took him to a BB King recording session. A percussionist at first, Gibbons was sent by his father to New York City to study with Tito Puente. In 1963, Gibbons received his first electric guitar following his 13th birthday, a sunburst Gibson Melody Maker, accompanied by a Fender Champ amplifier, and was influenced by guitarists such as Jimmy Reed.

Gibbons formed ZZ Top in late 1969, and quickly settled on bassist/vocalist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank "Rube" Beard, both members of the band American Blues. After honing their trademark blues-rock style, they released ZZ Top's First Album on London Records in 1971.

On December 14, 2005, Gibbons married long-time girlfriend Gilligan Stillwater (born Ellen J. Oetjen).

Gibbons was the guitarist during singer Luis Fonsi's presentation at the 7th Latin Grammy awards held in Madison Square Garden, New York, on November 2, 2006.

In 2007, Gibbons was featured in the Award Winning Documentary Feature Film, "The 1959 Burst" along side Les Paul Guitar Legends including Slash, Rick Nielsen, and Eric Johnson

Gibbons made a special guest appearance behind Roky Erickson on Austin City Limits taped on November 12, 2007 and originally aired January 12, 2008. (ACL Season 33, Episode 12).

Gibbons collaborated with Les Paul with his Les Paul & Friends American Made, World Played track "Bad Case of Loving You." Gibbons also performed guitar with John Mayall & Friends' track "Put It Right Back" from the album Along for the Ride. He was the first artist to appear on stage at Cleveland's State theater in November 2008 at the American Music Master Tribute to Les Paul, honoring the guitar and recording innovator, who died a few months later.

Gibbons sang background vocals on Sammy Hagar's 2008 CD Cosmic Universal Fashion during the song "Switch on the Light."

On January 22, 2010, Gibbons joined Ben Harper, Jeff Beck, Conan O'Brien and others on the final episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien playing a Will Ferrell-led rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird".

On February 19, 2011, Gibbons appeared as a guest judge at the 5th Annual Misprint Beard and Moustache Contest at the Mohawk Club in Austin, Texas.

In 2011, Gibbons joined with Texas-based Mojo Products, LLC, to launch a line of hot sauces, barbecue sauces, and other products with his own personal branding, "BFG Brand". The sauces were sold as BFG No. 44 via his personal website.

Gibbons is an avid car collector and custom car enthusiast with an extensive collection that includes a 1948 Cadillac Series 62 (known as CadZZilla), a 1962 Chevrolet Impala (known as "Slampala"), a 1950 Ford Business Coupe, and a 1958 Ford Thunderbird. One of his earliest custom cars, a 1933 Ford Coupe (known as "Eliminator"), was featured in three of ZZ Top's music videos and is also on the cover of their 1983 album, also titled Eliminator. Gibbons also published a book in 2011 about his love of cars and guitars titled Billy F Gibbons: Rock + Roll Gearhead. The November 2014 issue of Guitar World magazine featured an interview with Gibbons and fellow guitarist Jeff Beck about their mutual appreciation of "cars, guitars, and everything in between".

On December 15, 2012, Gibbons made a guest appearance at Social Distortion's concert at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. Frontman Mike Ness brought him out for two songs, "Drug Train" and "Black Magic". On November 19, 2014, Gibbons performed "Baby Please Don't Go" at the Vaclav Havel bust dedication ceremony in the US capitol.

In late 2012, Gibbons was featured in a series of television commercials for Fiesta Mart, a Texas supermarket chain. Some of the BFG Brand sauces were seen in these commercials.

On July 31, 2015 it was announced that Gibbons' solo project will be named Billy Gibbons and the BFG's featuring musicians Mike Flanigin, GG Maartine (née Martine GuiGui), Joe Hardy and Greg Morrow. Their debut album, Perfectamundo, was released on November 6, 2015.

Gibbons' second solo album, The Big Bad Blues was released on September 21, 2018 via Concord Records. At the 40th Blues Music Awards in May 2019, the album was named as 'Blues Rock Album of the Year'.

In 2018, Billy Gibbons teamed up with John Fogerty; the two guitar players are planning a summer tour under the "Holy Grail" title. John Fogerty wrote a song with the title "Holy Grail" which Gibbons has appeared on, adding his vocals and some guitar, Billy had this to say to 'Billboard Magazine': "It's not an overstatement to say that writing a song with John Fogerty is a genuine bonus. It's fair to say that John and I are both pumped about our collaboration and we think this new one called 'Holy Grail' holds true with some great storytelling and some solid guitarist movin' the number right along. It begs a shout of, 'Turn it up!'" The new single "Holy Grail" was released on June 8, 2018.

In a 2019 interview with Guitar World, Gibbons said that he's already starting to work on his next solo release. "I think we're going to call it Hardware, and that's in tribute to Joe Hardy, our stalwart engineer for four decades. He recently passed on, but in his wake he left the instruction manual -- 'Here's how to do it.' We're still trying to get to the back chapters. It goes deep."

Happy Birthday To Billy Gibbons Of ZZ Top

Happy 67th Birthday to the one and only Billy Gibbons, guitarist/vocalist of ZZ Top. Gibbons was born December 16, 1949 in Houston, TX and he formed ZZ Top in late 1969. The band haven't updated their Facebook page since September (below), but they do have a recent live album you can check out and also have tour dates beginning February 18, 2017 in Mobile, AL. © Imagecollect | Dreamstime.com

Happy Birthday Billy Gibbons. ZZ Top’s First Live Performance in Europe 1980 — Video

  Today marks the 66th birthday of guitar legend Billy Gibbons. To celebrate lets take a look back at some awesome clips of ZZ Top’s first live European show in 1980.  Filmed in Germany …