ZZ Top: Bearded bassist Dusty Hill dies in his sleep at 72

FILE - Dusty Hill, left, and Billy Gibbons from U.S rock band ZZ Top perform at the Glastonbury music festival in Somerset, England, June 24, 2016. ZZ Top has announced that Hill, one of the Texas blues trio's bearded figures and bassist, has died at his Houston home. He was 72. In a Facebook post, bandmates Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard revealed Wednesday, July 29, 2021, that Hill had died in his sleep. (Photo by Jonathan Short/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Dusty Hill, left, and Billy Gibbons from U.S rock band ZZ Top perform at the Glastonbury music festival in Somerset, England, June 24, 2016. ZZ Top has announced that Hill, one of the Texas blues trio's bearded figures and bassist, has died at his Houston home. He was 72. In a Facebook post, bandmates Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard revealed Wednesday, July 29, 2021, that Hill had died in his sleep. (Photo by Jonathan Short/Invision/AP, File)

HOUSTON — ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill, one of the Texas blues trio's bearded figures, died at his Houston home, the band announced Wednesday on Facebook. He was 72.

In their post, guitarist Billy Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard said Hill died in his sleep. They didn't give a cause of death, but a July 21 post on the band's website said Hill was "on a short detour back to Texas, to address a hip issue."

At that time, the band said its longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, would fill in on bass, slide guitar and harmonica.

Born Joe Michael Hill in Dallas, he, Gibbons and Beard formed ZZ Top in Houston in the late 1970s.

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