Frank Beard, Longtime ZZ Top Drummer, Dies at 77

Frank Beard, ZZ Top‘s longtime drummer for the past 56 years, has died. He was 77.

A representative for Beard confirmed that he died while in hospice care at his ranch in Richmond, Texas, with his family by his side. Just last week, ZZ Top abruptly canceled their performance at the Hollywood Bowl due to Beard’s health issues. Last year, Beard temporarily stepped away from touring for similar reasons.

In a statement shared with Variety, ZZ Top founder Billy Gibbons said, “Today, Elwood [Francis] and I lost a great friend and collaborator, and the world lost one of the most naturally innovative drummers and a great and true son of Texas. His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top. The band of which he was part for six decades is going to keep on keeping on as he had wished.”

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. The band’s co-founder, bassist Dusty Hill, died in 2021.

While ZZ Top was best known for their synthesizer-powered 1980s hits, they were a thoroughly Texan, heavy rock-blues band at heart, spawned from the same psychedelic scene that birthed Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators but keeping things roots and rocking throughout their more than 50-year career, even as they incorporated synthesized rhythms into their sound in the 1980s.

Though not a founding member of ZZ Top, Beard had played with the group since their debut “First Album” in 1971 through their most recent studio effort, 2012’s “La Futura,” as well as two recent live albums. Although Gibbons and Hill were renowned for their flowing beards, Beard sported only a mustache; Gibbons famously said, “Frank’s beard is on his driver’s license.”

Beard was born on June 11, 1949 in Frankston, Texas and was raised in Irving, Texas. Before joining ZZ Top, he performed in a variety of bands, often with Hill, including American Blues, the Warlocks, Hustlers and Cellar Dwellers. Beard replaced Dan Mitchell on the drums in ZZ Top in 1969 and helped recruit Hill from American Blues. The group’s classic lineup first performed in Beaumont, TX, on Feb. 10, 1970 and remained the same for more than five decades: They celebrated their 50th anniversary at a San Antonio concert in February 2020.

Launched on London Records in 1971, the trio secured its first major hit with the No. 8 LP “Tres Hombres” in 1973; the set included the raunchy single “La Grange,” a homage to the Chicken Ranch, the notorious bordello in the like-named Texas city. Another top 10 album, “Fandango!,” followed in 1975, powered by the FM-staple single “Tush.” Half of that album was recorded live in New Orleans, and captured the band’s powerful blues-rock groove.

By the end of the ‘70s, ZZ Top’s potent brand of gutsy, no-frills blues ‘n’ boogie had made it one of America’s top concert attractions; its elaborate 1976 Worldwide Texas Tour featured actual livestock on stage. They moved from London Records to Warner Bros. in 1979 for “Degüello,” which shifted 1 million copies.

While the popularity of “Degüello” hinted at bigger things to come, “El Loco” (1981) introduced both the sound and the look that would put the band over the top. The first hints of the sonic manipulation that would take center stage on “Eliminator” were heard on that set. Also, two years of tonsorial neglect between tours resulted in Gibbons’ and Hill’s long beards, which graced the album’s cover.

But it moved to another level of popularity with 1983’s “Eliminator,” which found Gibbons and his band mates experimenting with new technologies – guitar loops, manipulated vocals and synthesized bass and drums — that refreshed their sound.

The breakout success of three “Eliminator” singles – “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs” – and their accompanying videos, which featured car aficionado Gibbons’ like-named 1934 Ford coupe, lofted the band to a new level of commercial success and popular ubiquity. In the wake of “Recycler,” the band was cast as themselves in Bob Zemeckis’ “Back to the Future III” (1990).

“Eliminator” peaked at No. 9 and spent a remarkable 183 weeks on the American album charts, ultimately receiving diamond certification for sales of more than 10 million copies. The megahit album was succeeded by the quintuple-platinum “Afterburner” (1985) and the million-selling “Recycler” (1990).

In 1994, ZZ Top exited Warner Bros. for a highly publicized $35 million pact with RCA Records. With that move, Gibbons took on co-production duties with the band’s longtime manager Bill Ham, who had helmed their studio work since the group’s debut single. The immediate result was the platinum album “Antenna.” Gibbons took the solo production reins on the group’s last two RCA releases, “XXX” (1999) and “Mescalero” (2003), and co-produced “La Futura” (2012) with Rick Rubin for his American Recordings imprint.

The band continued a busy touring schedule into recent years, with the band’s longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, taking over for Hill — who had specifically requested before his death that Francis replace him — on bass.

Gibbons, now 76, and Francis will continue to perform as ZZ Top and will resume the group’s postponed tour with a date in Austin, Texas this weekend with a fill-in drummer, a rep confirms to Variety.