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by: Andy Langer
ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons brought in 2019 onstage, playing guitar with his normal New Year’s Eve running buddies: Willie Nelson & Family. Gibbons has been a not-so-surprise special guest at a half-dozen of Nelson’s annual new year’s performances at Austin’s ACL Live. And while this year Gibbons unfurled a long solo on Nelson’s version of “Texas Flood,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer says he’s generally just happy to have the best seat in the house to watch Willie play guitar.
“I think he’s underrated as a soloist,” Gibbons told us on the first National Podcast of Texas episode of 2019. “A guitar solo from Willie Nelson is as pleasing as you’d ever want to hear.”
A few days after New Year’s, Gibbons left Austin for Houston to join bandmates Duty Hill and Frank Beard to rehearse for the band’s first-ever residency in Las Vegas—an eight-show series at The Venetian that runs through early February. The Vegas gigs are the first real acknowledgment of the band’s 50th anniversary for 2019. Indeed, short of the first few singles and tours, it’s been what Gibbons describes as the “same three guys, same three chords” for a half-century.
“Someone asked recently, ‘How did you three guys manage to stay together for longer than most marriages?’” Gibbons says. “Two words come to mind: separate buses. It’s made it all go all right. It’s a good team.”