The singer that Billy Gibbons said is the best of all time

William Frederick Gibbons, best known as Billy Gibbons was born in Houston, Texas back in 1949 and started his career in the late 60s being lucky enough to be part of the Moving Sidewalks, which was Jimi Hendrix’s opening act during a few dates. But it was in 1969, when he co-founded ZZ Top alongside Dusty Hill and Frank Beard that everything changed.

They started as a really respected Blues Rock group but they achieved a huge commercial success in the 80s, adding a few new elements to their sound. The group sold an estimated amount of more than 50 million records worldwide and are certainly one of the most influential American groups. Since he was a kid, Gibbons had the chance to see many incredible musicians playing and he once revealed who is the best singer of all time, in his opinion.

The singer that Billy Gibbons said is the best of all time

16 years ago, Rolling Stone magazine invited famous  artists to vote for their top 20 singers of all time. These individual selections contributed to the final tally that determined the definitive list of the greatest vocalists ever.

Gibbons’ pick for the first position was the late legendary Little Richard, who is considered one of the godfathers of Rock and Roll music. Growing up in Houston, a musical city especially back then, Gibbons had the chance to discover many different kinds of music. But certainly, Richard was one of his main influences when he was a kid.

He talked about that in an interview with Shindig magazine in 2023 “About 1967. The 13th floor Elevators (Other Texan band), they hit pretty hard, I want to say ’66. That was the first single, ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’. They were out there! And after The Coachmen, preceding The Moving Sidewalks, we added some horns. We had three saxophone players because Little Richard was our hero. His singing, I don’t think there’s been another rock & roll singer that can eclipse his singing.”

“But his band came from Houston. The Grady Gaines Orchestra. Little Richard, he was from Macon, Georgia, I think. But Don Robey was a real astute black guy, businessman in Houston. He had two big nightclubs, The Bronze Peacock and The Eldorado Ballroom. He also ran The Buffalo Booking Agency. It was named after Buffalo Bayou which is the meandering river that runs through Houston.”

Billy Gibbons continued:

“A real entrepreneur, this guy had it all covered. Gambling in the back, cops paid off in the front, cops paid off over here. And then later he acquired Duke Records and Peacock Records and believe it or not the original Duke and Peacock building, it’s a ghost of a shell, but it’s still in Houston, down on Rastus Street. So anyway, The Grady Gaines Orchestra, Don Robey signed Little Richard and he originally appeared on the Peacock label, which is more of a gospel label.”

“But you can still hear some of those early Little Richard things – ‘Red Beans, Rice And Turnip Greens’, ‘Two Many Drivers At The Wheel’, they were secular, they were not gospel, but we took a page out of that book. We were called Billy G and the Ten Blue Flames, but we weren’t ten it just sounded good. I’ve got some posters, I’ll see if I can dig them out,” Billy Gibbons said.

Little Richard

Little Richard was born in Macon, Georgia back in 1932 and started his career in 1947. He became one of the godfathers of Rock and Roll music, releasing many highly influential songs in the 50s. Some of them were “Long Tall Sally”, “Tutti Frutti”, “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Lucille”.

Besides a singer, pianist and songwriter, Richard was also a minister. He even abandoned Rock for a while to record Gospel music. During his career he released 19 studio albums, the final one being “Southern Child”, released in 2005 but recorded in 1972. He passed away in 2020 at the age of 87.