Frank Beard, ZZ Top’s drummer for 56 years, has passed away while in hospice care at his Texas ranch. The band has canceled some shows this week as a result.
ZZ Top’s drummer Frank Beard, who played with the band for the past 56 years, passed away on Monday, August 17. He was in hospice care at his ranch in Richmond, Texas, with his family at his side. Beard was 77.
Beard, along with guitarist Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill, became one of the most enduring lineups in modern music. In 2021, Hill’s passing saw Elwood Francis join the band, and ZZ Top has continued to tour throughout North America, South America, and Europe to this day.
“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,” said Billy Gibbons. “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.”
As a result of Beard’s passing, ZZ Top has announced the cancellation of this week’s previously scheduled performances in Salt Lake City and Colorado Springs. The band will resume its current tour, The Big One!, this weekend with two dates at Austin City Limits, one of Frank’s favorite venues, and a city that has been “something of a second home for him.”
Inspired by the Beatles and the blues, Beard got a set of drums as a young man and soon met Dusty Hill. Beard played with Hill in the Dallas-based band American Blues, as well as in The Warlocks, Hustlers, and Cellar Dwellers.
In 1969, Beard suggested to Billy Gibbons—then a frontman in search of a rhythm section—to audition Hill. The trio “proceeded to jam non-stop for three hours” at Gibbons’ Houston home.
“We just didn’t want to stop,” Gibbons recalled. “And we just didn’t for the next five or six decades.”
ZZ Top went on to record 11 gold albums, seven of which were certified platinum, plus two platinum video albums. Their Eliminator album achieved diamond status with over 10 million copies sold.
Beard battled addiction and substance abuse in the early part of his career, but after ZZ Top took a years-long hiatus, he returned sober and never looked back.
Despite his name, Beard was ironically the only member of ZZ Top not to sport a flowing beard, instead going mostly clean-shaven. Gibbons was fond of saying that “Frank’s beard is on his driver’s license.”
