Billy Ethridge is a name that when mentioned, reminds a lot of people of the American rock band which was known around the 1970’s for their music which had a mixture of Texas blues, blues rock, boogie, southern rock and hard rock. Billy Ethridge was a musician and was a part of this band.
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Billy Ethridge Wikipedia
Due to the many controversies and back and forth about Billy Ethridge’s past, the story of his early years has been held from the eye of the media and been kept a secret so as to avoid further controversies. As a result of that, nobody knows the birthday, age or birthplace of Billy Ethridge though he is speculated to have been born or raised in Houston, Texas because of the fact that that is where the band ZZ Top was birthed and established.
Billy however, is a citizen of the United States of America, born and raised in his homeland. We do not know also who his parents are and f he had siblings or not.
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Information also on his educational background has been made unreachable to the public. However, we do believe that Billy had attained at least the minimum level of education.
Unlike some of his band members like Gibbons who kept long beards, Billy trimmed his beard short always and did not wear heavily tinted glasses and the likes. Billy Ethridge is a blonde and from pictures, he is seen to be of average height and weight.
Billy Ethridge career at ZZ Top
As a music-oriented man, Billy chose to pursue his career not doing anything than what he loves. Billy was a musician who played the guitar and was very good at it. He used to play with Jimmie Lawrence Vaughan one of the most famous blues-rock guitarist and singer, who was recognized by people as one of the “Vaughan Brothers” as he used work with his younger brother Stevie Ray Vaughan, and also was notable for being one of the founding members of the Fabulous Thunderbird.
After Jimmie retired, Billy accepted the offer from Billy Gibbons and started playing the electric bass for Gibbons’ then newly-formed band, “ZZ King.” Aside from the two Billy’s, the founding members of the band included Lanier Greig, who joined as the keyboardist and Dan Mitchell being their drummer. Billy Gibbons was the voice of the band and he subsequently played the electric guitar.
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The name of the band was inspired by his love for ZZ Hill and BB King and was a tribute to them, according to Gibbons. However, the combination of the two names made him relate too much to BB King, per his own words and so the band was renamed to ZZ Top where ‘Top’ also means King, because in his words, a King is always at the top.
After a while, the band recorded it’s first single with John Mayall as their manager. It was titled Salt Lick/Miller’s Farm, at Doyle’s Jones Recordings in Houston. Owing to the fact that the record deal with London Records was not yet signed, his band member Bill Ham released the single on his record label Scat Records. The music was a local success being aired and played on local radio stations and earning the group gigs throughout Texas.
In the beginning, the band had no major breakthroughs. Their most known song had only hit the local charts and was ranking 10th position. Somewhere along the line however, sometime during one of their tour breaks, the band wrote the album named ‘Rio Grande Mud’ which when was released, was a national hit. Rio Grande Mud was released in 1972 and earned the band its first listing on the Billboard 200 at number 104, while the single they had also released, Francine, reached number 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 and because of the success, the band denied their first tours as headliners.
After this, the band became increasingly famous, going on tours and making in big, hitting the international charts and even receiving some renowned awards.
Billy Ethridge relationships
Just as there are no records of his early life, so is there no information about Billy’s love life and relationships. He never opened up to the public about his love life and we do not know if he ever got married let alone have children.