ZZ Top: the end of an era, but not the end of the road

For more than half a century, Frank Beard sat behind the drums of ZZ Top, helping create one of the most recognisable sounds in American rock.
He was there almost from the beginning, joining Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill in 1969 and remaining part of a lineup that, remarkably, stayed together for more than five decades.
He died on August 17, 2026, at the age of 77, after health problems had forced him to step away from the band’s touring schedule, and his death marked the end of something that had seemed almost untouchable: the original ZZ Top trio.

Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard were not simply three musicians who happened to play together for a very long time, but they became a visual and musical institution.
The blues, boogie and hard-rock combination was instantly recognisable, while the contrast between Gibbons and Hill’s enormous beards and Beard’s famously much less impressive facial hair became one of rock’s great running jokes.
As Gibbons once put it, Frank’s beard was “on his driver’s license.”

But there was always more to Frank Beard than the joke.
His precise, economical drumming was a fundamental part of the ZZ Top sound, providing the groove underneath Gibbons’ guitar while allowing the band to remain remarkably powerful despite being a three-piece. From “La Grange” and “Tush” to “Gimme All Your Lovin’”, “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs”, Beard’s playing became part of the band’s musical identity.
Now, however, ZZ Top faces a reality that would have been almost impossible to imagine during its golden years: neither of the other two members of the classic trio is still alive.
Dusty Hill died in 2021, and Beard has now followed him.
Only Billy Gibbons remains from the lineup that defined ZZ Top for generations.

And yet he has no intention of treating ZZ Top as a museum piece.
In his first interview following Frank Beard’s death, the guitarist made it clear that he sees ZZ Top as something larger than the three men who created its most famous incarnation.
The band, in his view, is also a musical institution — a name, a catalogue, a sound and a legacy that can continue beyond the lives of its original members.
That idea is not entirely new.
When Dusty Hill died in 2021, the bassist had already made his wishes clear: ZZ Top should continue.
Elwood Francis, Hill’s longtime guitar technician, subsequently stepped into the bass role and has remained part of the touring lineup.
Beard, too, had apparently thought about the future.
Michael Monahan had already been brought in to replace him during the band’s 2026 tour, meaning that the transition after his death was not something the band had to improvise from scratch.
After Beard’s passing, Monahan became the drummer alongside Gibbons and Francis.

There is something almost perfectly ZZ Top about the arrangement.
The lineup has changed, but the machinery keeps moving.
Whether every fan will feel the same way is another question.
There is an undeniable emotional difference between seeing ZZ Top with the three men who recorded the classic catalogue and seeing the name carried forward by musicians from a later generation. But Gibbons appears to have made his position clear: ZZ Top is not finished simply because history has taken away the men who built it.
And if anyone was going to make that argument, it was probably going to be the man standing behind one of the most famous guitars in rock history.

Billy Gibbons’ relationship with guitars is almost a story within the ZZ Top story.
At the centre of it all is “Pearly Gates”, his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard. Gibbons acquired the guitar in 1968 after selling his share of a 1936 Packard. The car had been nicknamed Pearly Gates after an aspiring actress drove it from Texas to Hollywood for an audition and successfully got the part. Gibbons used his $250 share of the proceeds to buy the Les Paul from a Houston-area rancher — and transferred the car’s unlikely name to the guitar.
The result became one of the most famous instruments in rock.
Pearly Gates has been at the heart of Gibbons’ ZZ Top sound since the band’s earliest years, and Gibson describes it as the guitarist’s “Holy Grail”. The original is now so valuable that Gibbons has reportedly turned down an offer of $5 million for it.
There is another extraordinary guitar story connected to Gibbons: a pink Fender Stratocaster that he says was given to him by Jimi Hendrix.
Before ZZ Top existed, Gibbons was playing with The Moving Sidewalks, the Houston band that opened for the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1968. The encounter developed into a friendship, and Gibbons has recalled receiving a Stratocaster from Hendrix. Years later, he even used that guitar while recording “A Fool for Your Stockings”, creating an unusual link between Hendrix’s psychedelic era and ZZ Top’s bluesier world.
But if Pearly Gates is the heart of Gibbons’ guitar collection, Gibson Custom has now decided to turn that heart into one of the most extravagant collector pieces of the year.
The new Billy Gibbons “Pearly Gates” 1959 Les Paul Standard Collector’s Edition is limited to just 30 guitars worldwide. Gibson used 3D scans, detailed measurements and extensive examination of the original instrument to recreate its construction, finish, hardware and pickups. The guitars are aged by the Murphy Lab and individually hand-signed by Gibbons.

And the price?
$39,999.
Yes, for a guitar.

Each instrument also comes with an aged Lifton case, certificate of authenticity and something rather more unusual: an invitation to an exclusive Billy Gibbons event at the Gibson Garage in Nashville, including a private Q&A, intimate performance, meet-and-greet and photo opportunity.
In other words, Gibson isn’t really selling 30 guitars. It is selling 30 pieces of the Billy Gibbons mythology.
And apparently there was an audience for them: Gibson’s own website currently lists the Collector’s Edition as sold out.

That makes Pearly Gates more than an expensive replica. It is another example of how ZZ Top’s identity has grown beyond the three musicians who once walked onto a Texas stage together in 1969.
Frank Beard is gone.
Dusty Hill is gone.
The original trio exists now only in recordings, photographs and memories.
But the riffs remain, the beard remains, the sunglasses remain, Pearly Gates remains — and Billy Gibbons is still standing there, making sure that ZZ Top remains on top.