William Frederick "Billy" Gibbons is a renowned American rock musician, guitarist, composer, songwriter and performer. Founder and permanent leader of the cult rock band ZZ Top.
Musician biography
The legendary rocker was born in December 1949 in the small American town of Tanglewood. The boy's father, Frederic Royal, was a renowned conductor and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. Little Billy himself strove to master the musical literacy, and from an early age he performed in the orchestra as a percussionist (a musician who plays percussion instruments). Blues and rock and roll popular in those years for the boy were shown by his nanny with her daughter Stella Matthews. Stella took little William to clubs, where they listened to popular music albums in the blues or rock genre.
One of the key moments in Gibbons' life was Christmas 1963. Then he received his first electric guitar as a gift. It was a 1962 "primitive" Gibson. Just an hour later, relatives and friends listened to Billy's performance of one of Ray Charles's hits - What I'd Say. Having quickly mastered a new instrument, the future star of the heavy scene played the guitar all day long.
Career
Billy Gibbons gathered his first team at the age of 14, the group was called the Saints. Then he studied at the Hollywood School of the Arts, and his fellow students D. Crosswell and F. Taft became his group mates. Before the creation of the legendary ZZ Top, there was another little-known band founded by Gibbons. The band was called The Moving Sidewalks, they performed psychedelic music and acted as an opening act for well-known rock bands at the time.
In 1969, The Moving Sidewalks broke up and in the summer of the same year a new project of the restless musician appeared - ZZ Top. Over the first few years, the line-up changed several times and from the early 70s to this day the group has been performing unchanged. Only in 2006 the director Bill Hem left the group. The rock musician's compositions sound in many Hollywood films.
The first ZZ Top album was recorded in 1971, and today the group's discography includes fifteen studio albums. The last work of the group was published in 2012. After the release of La Futura, Billy Gibbons switched to solo work and in recent years has been recording independent work: in 2015, the album Perfectamundo was released, and the very fresh The Big Bad Blues appeared in 2018.
Facts from the personal life of the famous musician
William, unlike many guitarists, always uses a coin instead of a pick, this gives the sound of his guitars an unusual, unique shade. And the musician is the owner of several auto repair shops. His hobby is "pumping" modern sports cars and restoration of old cars.
Gibbons is also fond of collecting and collects literally everything that "lies" badly. Some sources indicate that he has a huge cell in the port, in which he stores his goods.
