The Texas trio were welcomed into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Rolling Stones guitarist and fan Keith Richards, who praised ZZ Top during his loose induction speech. “The heart of the matter is rock and roll and the blues,” he said. “These cats are steeped in the blues.”
During ZZ Top’s short acceptance speech, the trio thanked — as Hill said — “any record company that had the tenacity to sign us,” their families and their longtime manager and producer Bill Ham.
“The rough and gruff Texan band had a reverence for their roots, but never took themselves too seriously,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said of the band. “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.”(Rolling Stone)
Billy Gibbons has shared a the video for Desert High, the new single from his forthcoming album, Hardware, and it features name checks for The Doors’ former frontman Jim Morrison, late country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, Loudersound reports.
The video sees ZZ Top guitarist Gibbons cruising across the Californian desert around the iconic Joshua Tree, offering spoken word shouts out to Morrison (“The desert toad takes me for a ride/The Lizard King’s always by my side”) and Parsons, the Flying Burrito Brothers singer who died in a Joshua Tree hotel in September 1973.
“Gram died in room eight and left it all to Keith/Just a couple of miles from the salt and sea,” Gibbons sings, referencing Keith Richards; the Stones had encouraged their friend Parsons to record Sticky Fingers classic Wild Horses before they themselves released it. Hardware, co-produced by former The Cult/Guns N’ Roses’ drummer Matt Sorum, will be released on Concord Records on June 4. 
“I first met Gram in 1968, when the Byrds were appearing in London — I think it was a club called Blazes. I knew the Byrds from Mr. Tambourine Man; the Stones had worked some shows in California with them back then.
But when I saw them at Blazes with Gram, I could see this was a radical turn. I went backstage, and we hooked up. Then the Byrds came through London again, on their way to South Africa. I was like, ‘Man, we don’t go there.’ The sanctions and the embargo were on. So he quit the Byrds, right there and then. Of course, he’s got nowhere to stay, so he moved in with me.” (Keith Richards)
Gram Parsons starting spending more and more time at a place that had long been dear to him– Joshua Tree National Monument. He’d spend days there on LSD getting lost, chasing UFOs, whatever. Tragically it was there that Parsons overdosed in ’73 at the age of 26. According to to girlfriend Margaret Fisher’s account in the 2005 biography Grievous Angel: An Intimate Biography of Gram Parsons by Jessica Hundley, the amount of morphine consumed by Parsons would be lethal to three addicts– it’s thought that he’d likely overestimated his tolerance considering his past experience with opiates.
Keith Richards & Gram Parsons were close friends– with Gram feeding Richards a steady diet of country music influence. (read more)
