Loved learning more about Billy Gibbons from ZZTop. Even being a fan of the music there was a lot about him I didn't know.

ZZ Top were not a band I knew much about but were instantly recognisable for their look. I remember 'Doubleback' being the title song for Back To The Future III (great film), & I've heard their music on classic rock stations but I was too young to be a 'fan'. More recently, Gibbons has become known to viewers, such as myself, of forensic science show 'Bones' as the father of one of the characters (Angela) where it seems he basically played himself.

This book is an excellent overview of the band as an entity, their tours, & record deals, but scant on actual personal detail. Even after reading this, Gibbons remains an enigmatic figure, whilst Hill & Beard are so lightly sketched in they are practically transparent. Interesting read though.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Global Pequot/Backbeat, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

This is more of a 'setting the facts straight' than biography with the author carefully researching ZZ Top's guitarist and vocalist Billy Gibbons. The band ZZ Top was notorious for never giving straight answers while also embellishing or perhaps creating tall tales that sounded good and created the ZZ Top mythos. As such, there is little biography of Gibbons and his life here and more of a laying out of the facts of his career over the years.

The book starts off by breaking the myth of the band being a bunch of 'good old poor boys from Texas' by outlining Gibbons' privileged childhood as part of a wealthy and musically rich family. From there, McKittrick uses sources such as tour venue records to set a lot of the myths straight - from Gibbons' time with Jimi Hendrix and what other famous musicians may or may not have said about Gibbons/played with Gibbons. Although this might sound tedious, the author does a good job of making the information fun and very enjoyable to read. So much of what we know about ZZ Top or Gibbons really is too good to be true.

The book plows through Gibbons' time with the Moving Sidewalks (his early band), his breaks at that time and then formation of ZZ Top. Throughout it all is the "Col Parker" personality behind the band in the form of their manager Bill Ham. Of course, we learn more about the big break they were handed in the form of a burgeoning MTV and the rise of videos.

As hoped, there are some interesting discussions on the decline of the band by the end of the 1980s and subsequent albums through to the 2000s that never reached the zenith of Eliminator. Unlike most contemporaries, these three stayed together throughout the years and there are some interesting reasons why that happened.

In all, this is more informative than biography, helping to find the kernels of truths among all the myths (or dismiss them altogether). Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

Now in their 55th year, ZZ Top have managed a rare feat not just of such longevity but remaining widely recognizable despite a backstory has always been a touch vague. Christopher McKittrick (whose previous work includes books on Tom Petty and The Rolling Stones) takes on the task of trying untangle fact from fiction, in a book that has Billy Gibbons as it’s center piece, but is also de facto the story of ZZ Top.

No-one could accuse McKittrick of skimping on the research. It’s a book packed with details of tour dates, concert yields, videos shot and albums recorded. Unfortunately, without the active involvement of any of the band, family those directly connected to the band, the actual insight achieved is slight. Which is not to say it wasn’t an entertaining read, as McKittrick does his best to throw as much light as he can on Gibbons and Top, but by the end I wasn’t a great deal wiser about what Gibbons was really like, leaving the more unsavory aspects of the bands career to take center stage.

A great deal of Top and it’s history / mythology was shaped by Bill Ham, Top’s manager until 2006. From day 1 Ham imposed a number of strict rules that were designed to maximise Top’s mystique and their draw as a live act. Interviews were rare, publicity shots scare. Top were rarely seen even on album covers. The band toured relentlessly, and even as their audience became national then global, Ham refused almost all TV work, live albums or concert recordings, interviews were strictly rationed and answers frequently opaque and occasionally contradictory.

As a consequence, there’s very little in the way or archive material (recorded or written) for a writer to build a picture from. When Top did speak to the press – and it was mostly Gibbons that did so - it was commonplace to be what could kindly described as creative in their story telling. In a pre internet era with press that was often highly localized, there was no one to apply the scrutiny McKittrick applies 30 or 40 years later. So did Gibbons paint and write songs with Jimi Hendrix, or go to art school in Los Angeles? For all of McKittrick’s attempts at a time line, it proves hard to say one way or the other.

Artistic license applied to the band’s history is one thing. Outright fibs are another and McKittrick highlights several, from Ham’s early edict of no overdubs – which didn’t even last past the recording of the first album – to the copyright infringement cases they faced over “La Grange” and “Thunderbird”. Whilst legally victorious, Ham’s approach was morally dubious.

The no overdubs edict was still in force in 1983 when Gibbons and Top adopted a whole new sound. McKittrick doesn’t mince his words “Obviously, any listener could tell you that the album’s musician credits— simply listed as Billy Gibbons on guitar and vocals, Dusty Hill on bass and vocals, and Frank Beard on drums— are absurdly wrong based on all the extra instrumentation heard on the album ….. For one, there is no mention of synthesizers anywhere in the credits despite their unmistakable presence”. And no mention either of Linden Hudson, who is now acknowledged to have been the principal collaborator on the album with Gibbons, to the point where there are widespread doubts as to whether Hill and Beard actually played on the album at all.

McKittrick does his best to balance the book out with detailed assessments of tours, recordings and videos. But the inevitable problem is that tour dates and grosses, recording locations and unnecessarily detailed descriptions of Tops videos (they are all on YouTube Chris ….) don’t tell us anything much about Billy G.

McKittrick does draw out Gibbon’s willingness to experiment with new sounds, a desire to try and remain in touch with new music, his love of cars, the wacky humour and the way in which Top became a huge MTV hit despite being in most other respects an anachronism. His research into Gibbon's upbringing suggests his family helped him gain a substantial musical education, something that Gibbon's chose to play down in his quest to come across as a poor ol' dude from Texas. He’s also able to add a little depth and colour to the making of “Little Ol’ Band From Texas” documentary that can currently be found on Netflix that turned out to be Dusty Hill’s last band project with Top.

Unfortunately Gibbons the man remains something of an enigma. ZZ Top engineer and producer Joe Hardy is quoted as saying “Here’s one thing I can tell you that is absolutely true and that he will approve if I say this: He will lie about anything. Our saying is that he would rather climb a tree to tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth.” McCittrick shook the tree a little, but Bill G isn't coming down any time soon.

The book explains why there are so many different versions of ZZ Top stories. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

Christopher McKittrick covers ZZ Top & Billy Gibbons in this biography. However, it’s not really a biography because he doesn’t go into much about Billy’s personal life. There’s no one on one interview between Gibbons and the author. He gleans all of his source material from other interviews, documentaries, etc. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more information about what it was like to be in ZZ Top, crazy stories, fun stories, and so on. A lot of the book just describes their touring schedule. it was still informative, and I learned a lot about the band.

Thank you to NetGalley & Backbeat for an ARC of this book.

A good story about a great band, although must admit I found it disheartening when it begins by putting down the hit album from the 80s. Must admit I loved that album and the MTV videos. Still though, while easy to pick up and easy to put down, I would still recommend this book if you have enjoyed ZZTop music, and also like reading of behind the scenes of music groups.

This was a very interesting book. As someone who grew up hearing some ZZ Top, I wanted to give this a listen, as ZZ Top was (and still is) iconic, and a huge part of the music industry.

This was very informative, it was interesting to read about Billy, his growing up and so forth.

Thank you NetGalley and Backbeat publishing for my E-ARC in exchange for my honest review.