“They painted this picture of Texas which was totally exotic,” adds Winston Marshall of Mumford & Sons, who happened upon his mother’s copy of 1973’s “Tres Hombres” at age 15. A handful of today’s top modern rockers, including Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme and Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, happily profess their admiration. Interspersed with interviews and miles of vintage footage, this mini-concert of foundational tracks like “La Grange” and “Brown Sugar” makes the documentary worth watching even for ZZ aficionados: their singular chemistry is as bracing and potent as ever. The car pulls up in front of Gruene Hall, and ZZ Top heads inside to jam inside the hallowed Hill Country venue. “Lil’ Ol’ Band from Texas” opens with a collage of rural Texas scenery - falling-down barns, a Texas flag, gas stations, railroad tracks - before picking up a jet-black hot rod heading down a country road. “I have found the people that I want to play with, and I found that at a very early age,” drummer Frank Beard says as Dunn is starting to wrap things up. To its credit, director Sam Dunn’s 90-minute film - as no-frills, straightforward, and entertaining as the average ZZ Top song - knows better than to expect a great deal of introspection from a band so capable of letting their music do most of the talking. It’s a lot more than just Mexican blackbirds and cheap sunglasses, though. Added to Netflix this month, the 2018 documentary “ZZ Top: That Lil’ Ol’ Band from Texas” peers (barely) beyond the beards to investigate Billy F Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill’s enduring mystique. ZZ Top has been part of the scenery for so long in this part of the world that it’s easy to forget how exotic they once came across to the rest of the globe.

“It was like seeing Bugs Bunny in person,” says the longtime fan. ”Īctor, musician, and grade-A oddball Billy Bob Thornton sees it a little differently. When ZZ Top came blazing out of Texas in the mid-‘70s, the Village Voice turned up its nose, likening the trio’s sound to “hammered. In this June 24, 2016, file photo, Dusty Hill, left, and Billy Gibbons from the rock band ZZ Top perform at the Glastonbury music festival at Worthy Farm, in Somerset, England.

Zz top documentary