Billy Gibbons
Billy Gibbons is an actor, born 1949.
Gibbons has been the guitarist, lead singer and primary songwriter of ZZ Top since he formed the band in late 1969, and by then he already had a career behind him. He came up in Houston with Moving Sidewalks, who recorded Flash in 1969 and opened four dates for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which is the sort of apprenticeship that tends to shape a player permanently. ZZ Top's first album arrived in early 1971, and he has run a solo line alongside it since Perfectamundo in 2015.
On screen he is nearly always himself, and the credits reflect a musician's television life: performance and conversation on CMT Crossroads, a set at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2010, archive footage in Religulous, a version of himself dropping into the sitcom Yes, Dear.
The one genuine acting job is the good one. On Bones he recurred as the father of one of the leads, and the credit tells you how the show handled it: he is billed simply as Angela's Dad. The part runs on the guitarist's own presence, an unimpressed and faintly menacing man turning up to assess his daughter's life choices, and it is a small, well-judged piece of casting. He is funnier in it than a musician appearing on a network procedural has any right to be.
Movies (2)
TV (3)
Where to start with Billy Gibbons
Go to Bones first, which is not where most people would expect to be sent. His run as Angela's father is the only place he plays a character rather than an appearance, and the deadpan around him is what makes it land. Pick any of his episodes and the casting explains itself.
For the guitar, Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2010 is the concert film with the best company, and CMT Crossroads is where the format asks him to talk about the playing as well as do it.
Yes, Dear is the sitcom cameo, entirely disposable, and Religulous uses archive footage rather than a new appearance. Neither will teach you anything the records will not, so treat them as trivia.