The guitarist who taught Billy Gibbons the most and opened up his career
Rhythm and blues has always been a style of music that doesn’t require you to necessarily have chops, but more requires the player to completely submit to a feeling, and Billy Gibbons is a prime example of someone who understands this.
With ZZ Top having always operated as a trio, you might think that the temptation has always been there for Gibbons to showcase a little more flair on the guitar as a lead instrument, but somehow, the group managed to excel without this, and Gibbons has still managed to demonstrate exactly why he’s one of the most feared musicians in this regard.
Admittedly, he’s also a great lead player, but for the most part, his role in the band is all about the rhythm and his ability to lock into a groove alongside Dusty Hill and Frank Beard on bass and drums. It’s only on rare occasions where it feels totally necessary that Gibbons finds himself bringing out the soloing ability, and that’s never stood in the way of the band still getting across their brilliance.
However, that doesn’t mean his greatest inspirations were the sorts of guitarists who did exactly the same thing, and his personal favourites are among those whose pleasure in showing off was far greater than Gibbons’ ever was.
While many other blues players are evidently adept at playing rhythmically, a large portion of the greats can also pull off the most elaborate and expressive solos, and this is ultimately what elevates them to a greater level of recognition within the field.
Many of these stem from prior to ZZ Top’s emergence in the 1970s, with the legends of the genre having been most active in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but one of Gibbons’ main heroes is someone who never stopped providing that star quality from the as far back as the 1940s, right up until his passing in 2015.
BB King is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most naturally gifted blues players to have ever lived, and naturally, Gibbons was drawn to his style as something that pushed him in the direction he would end up taking. In a 2022 interview with Guitarist, Gibbons spoke about the handful of times that he was fortunate enough to have met with his idol, and spoke about the priceless pieces of advice that he received from King which he instilled in his own work.
“BB King left me with probably the strongest statements you could ask for,” Gibbons explained. “Firstly, you should learn to play what you want to hear. Not what someone is trying to teach you. Follow what’s in your head.”
If you’re going to take inspiration and advice from anyone in this lane, then King is arguably one of the best reference points you can have for pushing yourself to greater heights. It just so happened that Gibbons was already infatuated with his work, and was privileged enough to have shared the company of King in the first place, allowing him to learn from an undisputed master.
