ZZ Top Stories in Honor of Frank Beard

If you're from Texas, and especially if you're from Houston, ZZ Top looms large over the social, cultural, and musical landscape. They were huge in the '70s, and then in the '80s, when they took over the world and MTV with the Eliminator record, you couldn't get away from them. And these weren't sequestered rock stars. They were everywhere in Houston. You'd see them all around. Later, in my professional life, when I worked in the food business, they had some contract issues, and I got brought in by a friend of a friend to help them with a few things. Although my main contact was Billy Gibbons, I did see Frank a couple times, and I will say this on his passing: I think it's the Tab colas that kept him going. I never saw him without one. I'd have all this stuff to do, and all this hierarchy to negotiate, but all I could think about was, where is he getting those Tabs? Maybe it was the chemicals in there that were keeping him alive. He also had his dog with him at all times. When they…