ZZ Top

Year:
2004
Inducted by:
Keith Richards
Category:
Performers

Billy Gibbons
Frank Beard
Dusty Hill

Introduction

The rough and gruff Texan band had a reverence for their roots, but never took themselves too seriously.

ZZ Top charmed millions with their party anthems and brash music videos. Their mammoth tours solidified a nationwide following and featured everything from Texas-shaped stages to live rattlesnakes.

Keith Richards Inducts ZZ Top

Keith Richards Inducts ZZ Top at the 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

Keith Richards Inducts ZZ Top

00:03:35
ZZ Top acceptance speech

00:01:27
"La Grange" and "Tush"

00:06:51
Members of ZZ Top Induct Freddie King

00:03:01

Hall of Fame Essay

2004

Tom Vickers

After thirty-five years as the world’s longest-running band with no personnel changes, ZZ Top is instantly recognizable, by both sight and sound.

ZZ Top’s beards and blues-based Texas rock have made the band a cultural icon. Their likenesses have appeared in The New Yorker- a cartoon depicting a long-bearded police officer, captioned “ZZ Cop” - and in an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart spies three Hasidim and yells, “Hey, look. It’s ZZ Top. You guys rock!”