There have been a few different stories about the origin of the name “ZZ TOP”. The story I believe and makes the most sense is while sharing some of Mother Natures Finest, Dusty looked down at the coffee table and there was two packs of Rolling Papers… “Zig Zag” and “Top”
Billy was originally in The Moving Sidewalks. The name ZZ Top was selected by the band because they wanted their records to be the very last bin in the record store display, so they were the last ones you'd look at and always be seen.
Thanks bro. ZZ Top has been around for over 50 years. In 1984 they won awards at MTV's Video Music Awards show. They are one of few groups that can put out sound that sounds like 10 musicians playing, when there are only 3 of them. This was an era of rock music was synthesized, with guitar, bass, and drums ie, also known as engineering technology. These guys wrote and performed their own music. Music composition not only consists of lyrics, but written music notation.
In upstate SC in the '80s, at 0100 Saturday morning the Greenville NBC station played a show called "Friday Night Videos." ZZTop was a regular in the lineup...ahhhhh...memories. :)
Billy Gibbons did a great featuring on a recent Morris day song "Too much girl 4 me" with a video that is reminiscent of the 80's ZZ Top's videos era : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BdawNPiaTMY.html