Frank Beard didn’t play on this tribute to the 13th Floor Elevators by fellow Texan garage band The Moving Sidewalks. But they were the catalyst for the creation of ZZ Top.

It was while watching them in a Houston bar that the drummer first encountered their guitarist Billy Gibbons in 1968, and immediately recognised a kindred spirit.

For the previous two years Beard had been playing drums, in a series of bands – The Warlocks, The Cellar Dwellers, American Blues – in and around Dallas, forming a formidable rhythm section with bass guitarist Dusty Hill.

Soon after that fateful night in Houston, Gibbons formed a new trio called ZZ Top. After a solitary single he brought in Beard to replace the drummer. The two had an immediate musical connection and soon afterwards the bass guitarist was sacked and Beard brought in his old sticks man Hill.

The new ZZ Top made their debut in 1970 but it was not until their third album, Tres Hombres, and the single La Grange, that they broke through to the mainstream three years later.

In the MTV era they became surprise superstars, tweaking their bluesy sound with synthesisers and adding novelties like the rotating guitars favoured by Gibbons and Hill.

The band survived Hill’s death in 2020 and Gibbons and Beard stayed at the helm despite drug addictions that involved numerous trips to rehab for the drummer, Beard was still doing the Texas Shuffle until the day he died.