Dusty Hill, the quiet, bearded bass player who made up one third of ZZ Top, among the best-selling rock bands of the 1980s, has died at his home in Houston.
The band paired their grungy sound and innuendo-filled lyrics with a knowing, sometimes comic stage act — Mr. Hill and Mr. Gibbons, in matching sunglasses and Stetson hats, would swing their hips in unison, spinning their instruments on mounts attached to their belts.
“Sometimes you don’t even notice the bass,” he said in a 2016 interview.
He started his musical career singing and playing cello, but he switched instruments at 13, when his brother, Rocky, who played guitar, said his band needed a bassist.
In 1969, Dusty was living in Houston and working with the blues singer Lightnin’ Hopkins when Mr. Beard, a friend from high school, suggested that he audition for an open spot in a trio, called ZZ Top, recently founded by Mr. Gibbons.
The band’s humor was evident from the start: They named their first album “ZZ Top’s First Album.” Real success came in 1973 with their third release, “Tres Hombres,” which cracked the Billboard top 10.
Many of their early songs leaned heavily on sexual innuendo, though sometimes they set the innuendo aside completely.
In 1976, after a string of hit albums and nearly seven years of constant touring, the band took a three-year hiatus.
The band reunited in 1979 to release “Degüello,” their first album to go platinum, and the first time Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Hill grew out their beards.
“My sound is big, heavy and a bit distorted because it has to overlap the guitar,” he said in a 2000 interview.
In 2014 he injured his hip after a fall on his tour bus.
Contrary to their image — and the hard partying that their music seemed to encourage — Mr. Hill and his bandmates kept a low, relatively sober profile.
“People ask how we’ve stayed together so long,” he told The Charlotte Observer in 2015.