For a band that’s just as iconic for their look as for their sound, separating the MTV novelty of ZZ Top from a successful history of Texas blues-rock on par with Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughn can be difficult. Underneath the cheap sunglasses, the hats, and facial hair is a trio of blues musicians whose talent exceeds the gimmick: guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill, and drummer Frank Beard. As southern rock goes, ZZ Top is weighty in their sound. Though Hill and Beard create the drive and fullness with their rhythm section, it is Gibbons who stakes the notes into the ground with that signature blues heaviness.
Billy Gibbons, born in Houston, Texas in 1949, is a staple figure in American blues rock, respected for his talent and loyalty to roots music and his contribution to supporting the future of the blues in America. His early exposure to different musical genres—in part, due to his father— gave him the flexibility to experiment with different instrumentation and beats, and collaborate with a wide range of bands and musicians—Queens of the Stone Age, Lou Pallo, Dave Grohl, and Luis Fonsi, to name a few—which has lead to his success as an active guitarist beyond ZZ Top.
The sounds that filled his house growing up were mostly country and classical music and it wasn’t until he saw Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show that he became obsessed with rock ’n’ roll. At the age of 13, he received a Gibson Melody Maker and Fender Champ amp for Christmas.
In 1966, Gibbons formed Moving Sidewalks, a psychedelic-rock group influenced by artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane. Gibbons caught the attention of Hendrix who, on the Dick Cavett show, stated that he was one of his new favorite musicians. Moving Sidewalks split in 1969. Shortly after, he formed ZZ Top, looking to play more straightforward blues.
Gibbons plays a range of guitars including a ’55 Fender stratocaster (heard on “La Grange”), a ’61 Gibson SG, and a Gretsch Jupiter Thunderbird. He uses Marshall amps and six Bixonic Expander pedals for distortion, all of which he rides on the edge so the sound isn’t muddied. Some of the lightest gauge strings in rock n’ roll grace Gibbons guitar, beating B.B. King’s lightest string at .007. Gibbons initially believed that in order to get a heavy blues sound he needed strings at a heavier gauge, but King—an early proponent of light gauge strings—advised him otherwise. “Why you workin’ so hard?” King asked Gibbons. From then on, Gibbons has been using custom-made light gauge strings (.007 .009 .011 .020w .030 .038).
Strings aside, perhaps the biggest contributing factor to the tone of Gibbons’s guitar is the pickup. Discussing what makes Billy Gibbons sound like Billy Gibbons requires a bit of an abbreviated refresher course in pickups, basically dissecting his musical “luck” factor with his signature guitar: a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard named Miss Pearly Gates. Pearly Gates has been used on every ZZ Top recording. For a musician who is all about tone, he considers this guitar to have the perfect tone. Here’s why.
A pickup uses a magnet, a wire that wraps around the magnet called a coil, and a bobbin, which holds the coil in place, to turn the vibration of guitar strings into electric sound. When the string is played and vibrates over the pickup it disrupts the magnetic field of the magnet and creates an electrical current along the coil. The type of magnet and gauge of the wire used and how many times it is coiled around the magnet will affect the outcome of an electric guitar’s sound. That being noted, there are different kinds of pickups. In the case of Gibbons, we are concerned with PAFs (Patent Applied For), a vintage pickup invented by Seth Lover in 1955 and used in Gibsons from 1956-1962.
This does not mean that any plugged-in Gibson from ’56-’62 will sound like Pearly Gates, though. Vintage PAFs do not typically have a standard sound because there was no way to guarantee a standard make of a pickup. Pearly Gates sounds like she does due to the luck of the craftsmanship.
According to pickup manufacturer Seymour Duncan, if you were to agree on a standard for a vintage PAF, the DC resistance—or Ohm reading of the pickup— would be 7.2k in the neck and 8.1k in the bridge. Pearly Gates’s pickup is over-coiled. The more wraps, the more output. Pearly Gates has 7.3k neck, 8.35k, bridge. As Seymour Duncan states, “The result is a humbucker that sounds slightly ruder than the average PAF, with a strong sustain, noticeable warmth and a bright high end which really helps harmonics to sing.” Gibbons insisted that this be the sound in all of his guitars so he worked with Seymour Duncan to develop a custom pickup that he could install in his guitars on the road (Pearly Gates doesn’t tour much). This pickup can be ordered from Seymour Duncan to the tune of about $100.00.
Of course, we cannot forget that the incredible talent of Gibbons is what made his sound iconic in the first place. Equipment only gets a musician so far. Listening to the licks on “Brown Sugar” makes you want to sing “Waitin’ on the Bus” — have mercy! If you really want to sound like Gibbons, practice your blues, listen to the roots—fall in love with B.B. King—and if you want, purchase one of the custom John Bolin fuzzy guitars he plays. It couldn’t hurt. But if you want to get the tone, then you have to start looking at what’s inside the guitar, not just what’s on it.