Frank Beard
The ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard has died at the age of 77 oetting/Flickr

Frank Beard, the steady-handed drummer who anchored ZZ Top for more than 50 years, has died aged 77 at his ranch in Richmond, Texas. Beard died on Monday in hospice care, surrounded by family, according to a publicist for the band. No cause of death has been disclosed.

His death follows a run of cancelled shows, including a Hollywood Bowl date earlier this month and concerts in Salt Lake City and Colorado Springs, which the band pulled citing Beard's health. ZZ Top said the tour would resume this weekend with two dates in Austin, one of Beard's favourite venues.

'A Great and True Son of Texas' Gibbons Pays Tribute

In a statement, frontman Billy Gibbons paid tribute to the man he had played alongside since 1969. 'Today, Elwood 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,' he said.

'His signature backbeat kept ZZ Top on top. The band of which he was part for six decades is going to keep on keeping on as he had wished.'

That backbeat, understated but instantly recognisable, drove hits including La Grange, Tush and Legs, songs so embedded in rock radio that they now feel like part of the furniture. While Gibbons' fuzz-drenched guitar and the late Dusty Hill's bass drew much of the attention, Beard's groove quietly held the band together.

The 1969 Jam Session That Changed Everything

Born in Frankston, Texas, on 11 June 1949 and raised in Irving, Beard began drumming in his teens, later recalling how he sneaked into Dallas blues clubs to watch players such as Freddie King.

He joined Gibbons' band, then called the Moving Sidewalks, in 1969, and it was Beard who suggested auditioning his old bandmate Dusty Hill on bass. The trio met at Gibbons' home in Houston, jammed for hours, and rarely stopped for the next five decades.

ZZ Top played their first paying gig at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Beaumont, Texas, in February 1970, and went on to sell more than 50 million albums, with six singles reaching number one on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.

Battles Offstage and a Lasting Comeback

Success came with a cost. By the late 1970s Beard had developed serious drug and alcohol problems, prompting the band to step away from touring.

He returned sober and, by most accounts, more focused, marrying Debbie Meredith in 1982 and having twin sons, Rory and Nico, in 1985. Health issues resurfaced periodically: an emergency appendectomy forced him to miss shows in 2002, and he stepped back from touring in 2025 citing an unspecified condition.

Despite his surname, Beard never grew the chest-length beards that made Gibbons and Hill instantly recognisable, staying largely clean-shaven throughout his career. He was similarly modest about the band's fame.

Accepting ZZ Top's place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, he told the audience: 'Most of my life has been a pleasant surprise, and so is this. Thank you.'

Asked once why the band's line-up had stayed so stable, he said simply that with only three members, 'there's only two other guys to argue with'.

Hill's death in 2021, aged 72, left Beard and Gibbons to continue with Elwood Francis on bass. With Beard's passing, Gibbons is now the only surviving member of the band's original line-up.

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