The influential group Billy Gibbons called “the great southern rock band”
As one of the surviving classic rock legends, Billy Gibbons has seen many legends come and go and bore witness to the zeitgeist evolving markedly since the days of rudimentary rock ‘n’ roll.
While his band, ZZ Top, are often thought of in a somewhat jocular manner, given their long wizard beards and furry guitars, there should be no doubt that Gibbons ranks at the top of the class of rock guitarists. There’s even a well-known story that his late friend Jimi Hendrix, whom he met when performing in the pre-ZZ Top outfit Moving Sidewalks, believed he was the best axeman around.
He’s not just a blues-rock pioneer, though. Many alternative rock heroes cite the force of Gibbons’ work as instrumental in establishing their own sounds. One of the most surprising is Alice in Chains member Jerry Cantrell. His work with the Seattle band might be laced with a swaggering form of blues, but the darkness he elicited from his fretboard is a far cry from the good-time hedonism Gibbons is known for.
Yet, for Cantrell, Gibbon’s tone, feel and general attitude are three aspects that spoke to something deep within his young soul and helped him forge his philosophical outlook.
Although Gibbons is undoubtedly a staple of blues rock, ZZ Top were one of the guiding lights of its location-specific, more rootsy offshoot, southern rock. While a majorly influential sonic palette, which was brought to the fore by Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers Band, it wasn’t for everybody.
Many listeners not from the south couldn’t understand their glorification of its way of life when it emerged, especially given its connection to notorious racists, the KKK. This is typified by Neil Young’s song ‘Southern Man’, which painted a skewed version of the region. This, of course, attracted the explicit response from Lynyrd Skynyrd in ‘Sweet Home Alabama’: “I hope Neil Young will remember / A southern man don’t need him around anyhow.”
While Lynyrd Skynyrd introduced a definable southern rock sound in the early 1970s with ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Free Bird’, after pulling together the influence of the early blues pioneers and hillbilly rocker Charlie Daniels’ self-titled 1970 debut, Gibbons is in no doubt who the greatest act from the genre is. He believes it was the Floridian outfit The Allman Brothers Band, featuring the legendary slide guitarist Duane Allman, his brother Gregg, and Dickey Betts, three masterful six-string heroes.
Formed in Jacksonville in 1969, the group refined their style after relocating to Macon, Georgia. There, they seamlessly blended jazz, country, and jam elements into their distinctive southern rock sound. For Gibbons, their greatness as a southern rock band wasn’t solely due to their expansive music but also their lyrics, which captured the spirit of regional musicians who rejected conservative social values. In every aspect, they embodied a sense of pride.
Gibbons told Rolling Stone in 2010: “There are a couple of moments on At Fillmore East that defy description — where the Allmans take the music to places it had never been. That extended version of ‘Whipping Post’ is the all-time end-all for me. The Allmans were the great Southern-rock band, but they were more than that. They defined the best of every music from the American South in that time.”
He concluded, “They were the best of all of us.”
