ZZ TOP frontman Billy Gibbons recently sat down with Variety and spoke about the passing of bassist Dusty Hill who died on Wednesday in his sleep at home in Houston. On Thursday, ZZ TOP’s Gibbons and Frank Beard announced that their recently launched tour would continue Friday, with their guitar tech Elwood Francis filling in on bass.
Gibbons said that Hill played the first two shows of the tour. “And then he requested dismissing himself,” Billy recalled. “He said, ‘Yeah, let me go check this out.’ And of course I said, ‘Hey, man, health is number one. Go do your thing.’ And I could tell through those first two valiant attempts, if he’s not giving it 110%, he was the first one to kind of say, ‘Gee whiz. Let’s go take care of this.'”
He continued: “It’s no secret that over the past few years he had a pretty rough go with a broken shoulder, followed with a broken hip. And he had some problems with some ulcers. So he’s been kind of tiptoeing through keeping himself ship-shape, best he could. But I think that this was a real challenge. And by throwing in the towel, it might’ve caught up with him. Who knows? I’m just glad he’s in a good spot.”
Asked if there an official cause of death now, or is it just Dusty really fell asleep and didn’t wake up, Billy said: “That’s about all they can determine. Let’s face it, you don’t necessarily pass away from a broken shoulder or broken hip. Although the attending physician had earlier warned him that bursitis was not uncommon, even arthritis, and they said it’s not a very comfortable place to be. And I could tell that he was moving a little slow. He said, ‘Boy, this shoulder and hip are really starting to become a problem.’ But, as of this juncture, yeah, it was off to dreamland and beyond.”
Funeral arrangements for Dusty Hill have yet to be announced.