Frank Beard
Frank Beard (born June 11, 1949 in Frankston , Anderson County , Texas ) is an American blues musician who became known as the drummer for the band ZZ Top .
Life
youth
Beard attended Irving High School . In his youth he was active in several small bands such as The Cellar Dwellers , The Hustlers and The Warlocks . From The Warlocks eventually became American Blues .
American blues
American Blues was founded by Rocky and Dusty Hill as The Starliners in the early 1960s and was soon renamed The Deadbeats . Through an organizer, the band was booked early on as a backup musician for greats like Freddie King and Lightnin 'Hopkins who had no permanent band. From The Dead Beats was The Warlocks and in turn was American Blues . Frank Beard joined as the new drummer . The band's trademark back then was hair dyed blue to stand out from the other up-and-coming bands.
The band played a mix of psychedelic and blues rock . The band's first single was a cover of Pete Seeger's If I Had a Hammer for the local label Karma. With Is Here (1967) and Do Their Thing (1968) two albums were released, which were later re-released several times.
The band left the Dallas scene and moved to Houston . There the band split up due to the different ideas of the Hills brothers. Dusty Hill wanted more rock music, his brother wanted more blues influences. So he left the band and became a solo artist. Frank Beard eventually ran into Billy Gibbons from Moving Sidewalks , who was still looking for a bass player. Beard suggested Hill and the band ZZ Top was formed.
ZZ top
See also the main article: ZZ Top
Together with the moving sidewalks guitarist Billy Gibbons and his previous bandmate Dusty Hill, Beard founded the band ZZ Top in late 1969. The music style chosen was blues rock , Texas blues and southern rock . In Bill Ham they found a manager for the band who stayed from 1969 to September 2006.
Within the next six years, ZZ Top released five albums: The first album, ZZ Top's First Album , was released in 1971 on the Warner Bros. Records label , on which the band released their albums until 1990.
By 1976, ZZ Top became one of the best-selling rock bands of their time, but the band took a break until 1979. The following albums were more modern and the band mixed electronic sound with their normal style.
Until the sale of their internationally successful 1983 album Eliminator , Hill and Gibbons grew long beards, which became trademarks of the band as well as Gibbons' 1933 Ford Coupé, long-legged women in their music clips and the large number of different guitars and basses used in live performances. Beard was the only one who didn't grow a full beard (his last name means "beard" (!) In German), but he did have a mustache. Some of the band's songs are among the most played music clips on MTV .
With the album Antenna , which was released in 1994 , ZZ Top switched to RCA Records with a better-paid contract , where they released a total of four albums.
In 2004 Beard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with his bandmates .
Guest Posts
In 1990 he co-produced the tribute album for Roky Erickson (singer of The 13th Floor Elevators ) Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson .
Movie and TV
In addition to his purely musical career as a drummer, Beard has been associated with the film scene as a member of ZZ Top since the early 1980s. From 1982 to 2007 he contributed a number of songs to soundtracks (as a member of ZZ Top). B. An Officer and a Gentleman , The Winners - American Flyers , Knight Rider , Stephen King's The Stand - The Last Stand , Shang-High Noon , The Sopranos, and Ghost Rider .
Frank Beard also appeared on television himself. He plays one of the townspeople in the series Deadwood . In the film Back to the Future III , he and his bandmates played a band at the village festival. Beard also appeared on Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme, Ellen , A Simple Plan , King of the Hill and MADtv .
Private
Frank Beard is married for the second time. The first marriage with Catherine Alexander lasted from April 12, 1978 to July 16, 1981. Since November 11, 1982 he is married to Debbie Meredith in second marriage. From this marriage he has three children: a pair of twin boys and a daughter.
First Beard tried to make a career with the pseudonym Rube Beard and was specified in the directory of the two albums ZZ Top's First Album and Tres Hombres , before giving his real name.
Web links
- Frank Beard in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Frank Beard at Allmusic (English)}
- Frank Beard at Discogs (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b ZZ top publications at Allmusic
- ↑ a b Gibbons profile at Allmusic
- ↑ ZZ Top at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- ↑ famoustexans.com
- ↑ ZZ Top's First Album on Allmusic
- ↑ Rube Beard at Discogs
Members: Billy Gibbons (voc, g) | Dusty Hill (voc, bg) | Frank Beard (dr)
Studio albums : ZZ Top's First Album (1971) | Rio Grande Mud (1972) | Tres Hombres (1973) | Fandango! (1975) | Tejas (1977) | Degüello (1979) | El Loco (1981) | Eliminator (1983) | Afterburner (1985) | Recycler (1990) | Antenna (1994) | Rhythms (1996) | XXX (1999) | Mescalero (2003) | La Futura (2012)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Beard, Frank |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American blues rock musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 11, 1949 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Frankston , Texas , USA |