Seems I recall a saying floating around in the old days: “Never trust anyone over 30,” it went. Which is why it gives me such a charge now and again when grizzled gunslingers like ZZ Top — all in their mid-60s now — get young folk excited by doing something amazing, like coming to Starkville, as they will April 10.
Yes, I admit to a righteous twinge of told-you-so when under-30s line up for the likes of Neil Young, Santana, Stevie Nicks or Dylan. When Annie Lennox lights up the Grammys, as she did in February. Or Al Green plans a new album. Or “CSI” uses The Who for its iconic theme music. Or everyone, millenials included, clamors for a Led Zeppelin reunion. Older than 60, all these music makers … several in their 70s. And, golly, all apparently still worthy of trust. So, it must be true. My generation really did grow up to the best music ever.
ZZ Top is Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard — one of a very few major label recording groups to hold the same lineup for more than 40 years. Since their debut release in ’71, the band out of Texas has been synonymous with lean, driving bluesy roots and wily humor. They took their barrelhouse rhythms and earthy sound and adapted to the ebbs and flows, incorporating new wave here, punk rock there, and oh, yes, those irreverent synthesizers.
How many bands have been designated “Official Texas Heroes” by the Texas House of Representatives, earning a spot alongside Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett? And Mississippians should never forget that, when the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale was just a proposal on paper, the band raised $1 million for the project.
In what one reviewer calls “a determined pursuit of a good time,” these three guys made sharp clothes, cheap sunglasses and TV dinners cool.
Also cool is the very special guests ZZ Top is bringing to Mississippi State’s Humphrey Coliseum with them in a couple of weeks — Billy Bob Thornton and The Boxmasters.
Modbilly
The wider world knows Thornton as an actor. Fewer people realize the Academy Award winner is an acclaimed screenwriter, director and filmmaker. And many fewer, still, have a bead on how serious a musician he is. But the Arkansan’s biography at billybobthornton.net reveals the music came early, and never let go.
From drumming in a Creedence Clearwater Revival cover band at VFW clubs and roadhouses on weekends to forming a roster of bands post-high school, Thornton digs music. (He was also a baseball standout and tried out for the Kansas City Royals.)
He’s been a grocery store clerk, painter, hay hauler and drill press operator. He roadied for groups like the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Lighthouse. And (cosmic irony) he was part of Tres Hombres, a tight ZZ Top tribute band opening for the likes of Black Oak Arkansas, Richie Havens and Humble Pie.
Much of Thornton’s career in front of and behind the cameras can be traced to his lifelong friendship with writer Tom Epperson. And inspiration for some of his music can be found in the profound loss of his younger brother Jimmy, who died of a heart condition at 30. Take the time to read up; I found his background engrossing.
The Boxmasters’ new double album, “Somewhere Down the Road,” is set for an April 7 release, just days before their Golden Triangle visit. The “modbilly” band has been described by Thornton as a cross between The Monkees and Green Bay Packers. Now, who wouldn’t want to see that?
Rethink
That guy who said “never trust anyone over 30” to a reporter in 1965 is turning 75. I suspect that by now Jack Weinburg, the free speech activist arrested then at Berkeley, has altered that particular tune. Kind of like we’ve all come to realize our mamas and daddies really were right most of the time.
Billy Bob can’t claim 60 quite yet, but he certainly qualifies in the over-30 crowd. And I trust him — and ZZ Top — to be thoroughly entertaining.
Jan Swoope is The Dispatch’s Lifestyles editor; e-mail reaches her at [email protected] or call 328-2471.
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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