YEAR
2004
INDUCTED BY
Keith Richards
CATEGORY
Performers
The rough and gruff Texan band had a reverence for their roots, but never took themselves too seriously.
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.
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Tom Vickers
After thirty-five years as the world’s longest-running band with no personnel changes, ZZ Top is instantly recognizable, by both sight and sound.
ZZ Top’s beards and blues-based Texas rock have made the band a cultural icon. Their likenesses have appeared in The New Yorker– a cartoon depicting a long-bearded police officer, captioned “ZZ Cop” – and in an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart spies three Hasidim and yells, “Hey, look. It’s ZZ Top. You guys rock!”