Billy Gibbons Brings His “Desert High” to Agua Caliente Casino January 25th
By Bruce Fessier
Billy Gibbons’ latest solo release on Concord Records is “Livin’ It Up Down In Texas.” But the legendary ZZ Top front man could be the Joshua Tree Voice if this magazine hadn’t already claimed that title.
Gibbons’ skeleton-rattling, 2021 song narrative, “Desert High,” tells the story of life in the SoCal hi-desert as well as any Joshua Tree habitues such as Gram Parsons, Jim Morrison, or the Rolling Stones. In fact, that song, recorded at the Escape Studio in the Joshua Tree area, name checks those artists on a musical tour of the region’s dry, mountainous landscape, howling coyotes and rattle-shaking snakes. “Gram died in room eight and left it all to Keith,” Gibbons growls in the last song from the “Hardware” LP he wrote and co-produced with Palm Springs drummer Matt Sorum — “just a couple of miles from the Salton Sea, but a little closer to heaven for someone like me.”
Gibbons, 75, has provided magical musical moments with ZZ Top at desert venues from the Empire Polo Club in Indio to the Agua Caliente’s The Show in Rancho Mirage. But now he’s bringing his BFG Band to the Agua Caliente’s outdoor Terraza in Cathedral City on Jan. 25. Fans can expect ZZ Top songs like “Gimme All Your Lovin’” and “Cheap Sunglasses,” but also rocking solo numbers such as “Desert High,” “West Coast Junkie” and “My Lucky Card,” which were all promoted with videos shot in the hi-desert.
Sharp Dressed Man, Billy Gibbons. Photo by Levin Pervin
“Hardware” is Gibbons’ third solo album and he’s working on a fourth in Palm Springs and the high desert to go with “Livin’ It Up Down in Texas,” written with and featuring Billy Bob Thornton of the TV series “Landman.” Thornton played drums in the ZZ Top tribute band, Tres Hombres, decades ago, and “Livin’ It Up Down in Texas” debuted this month during “Landman’s” ninth episode, “Wolfcamp.”
Gibbons not only performs frequently in the desert, he’s visited and recorded in the area, most notably on desert rock legend Josh Homme’s recordings at the legendary Rancho de la Luna recording studio in Joshua Tree. Gibbons sang and played guitar on Homme’s “Burn the Witch” from the 2005 Queens of the Stone Age LP, “Lullabies to Paralyze.” Homme has called Gibbons one of his earliest musical influences.
The bushy-bearded Texan hasn’t bought a home in the SoCal desert, but he said in a recent interview he has a comfortable familiarity with the region that makes it almost like “livin’ it up in Texas.” “It feels like playing at home,” he said. “The atmosphere and reception is always genuine. It’s quite akin to performing for a gathering full of friends.”
Legendary Rancho De La Luna Recording Studio in Joshua Tree, CA
Photo of ZZ Top Performing at Stagecoach Music Festival. Photo by KM Morgan
His two performances with ZZ Top at the Stagecoach country music festival generated some of the loudest, most rapturous reactions ever in its Palomino tent. Their first Stagecoach appearance in 2015 was on an eclectic bill with Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers, Eric Burdon of the Animals, outlaw country progenitor Merle Haggard, outlaw country progeny Sturgill Simpson and alt-country vocalist Nikki Lane, whose 2022 album, “Denim and Diamonds,” was produced by Homme.
Gibbons said he watched at Stagecoach as country emerged from a niche genre to America’s music. He’s hesitant to guess what it might encompass next. “The confluence with a wide range of styles has combined to emerge with a stately kind of sonic expression,” he said with a rootsy musical cadence oozing through his syntax. “We’re diggin’ it all: country, rock, norteño, and especially that benchmark art form, blues. We’re not so sure about opera but would be willing to give it a try just to see what that might be like.”
Gibbons was born and raised in Houston, but his father, Freddie Gibbons, was a concert pianist and orchestra leader who often helped his cousin create scores and soundtracks for Hollywood studio mogul
Samuel Goldwyn. Billy attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles and played in L.A. rock bands before returning to Texas to launch the psychedelic Moving Sidewalks in the late 1960s.
That guitar, keyboard and harmonica-driven quartet had a hit with “99 th Floor” and opened for Jimi Hendrix. The BFG Band has been playing Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” as an homage to the guitar master. “We are forever indebted to Jimi Hendrix for taking us under his (little?) wing so long ago and showing us the ropes and underscoring the fact that one’s musical output is only limited by one’s imagination,” Gibbons said with literary turns-of-phrase. “Jimi was quite moved when the Moving Sidewalks took to revisit some of his songs. He said, ‘You got a lot of nerve… I like that,’ which was the first step toward becoming friends.
“One fave recollection was jamming after hours with him, where we dipped our guitar headstocks in dayglow paint and put on a self-contained light show ’til the wee hours. The memory of that still glows in our consciousness. What was learned? The unspoken value of opening up to new experiences and means of expression; the attempt toward the unknown is a true reward.”
The Renowned Elvis Presley Honeymoon House in Palm Springs, CA
Elvis Presley is another musical hero he regularly pays homage to. His mother took him to see Elvis in Houston just after his fifth birthday in December 1954, when Elvis and his Blue Moon Boys were on the
Louisiana Hayride circuit. The rockabilly experience changed him forever.
“Oh yeah!” he exclaimed. “Going to see Elvis with my mom back then was the start of something within that continues to this day. Even at the time, I knew I wanted to be part of this thing as it moved me in every way imaginable. The performance allowed bearing witness to such a cultural upheaval has retained a lasting effect on everything we’ve ever done since that day.”
These days, if he’s recording at Good Noise Studios in Palm Springs, owned by former Guns N’ Roses drummer, Matt Sorum, he’ll drive by the shrines of Elvis’ two main houses.
“I know both of those houses — the ‘Honeymoon House’ (on Ladera Circle) and the Spanish-style hacienda on Chino Canyon in Little Tuscany. Haven’t been inside, yet. We like to think he’s still in residence. In a way, he kind of is. They were more than simply houses. They were the great escape. Just knowing he was there still looms large with imagination moments of cool.”
Gibbons, who began utilizing Hendrix’s bass, drums and guitar configuration with ZZ Top in 1969, has featured keyboards since his first solo album, “Perfectamundo,” in 2016. Now he’s touring with a power trio including Austin, Texas stalwarts Mike Finigin on the B3 Hammond organ, and Chris Layton from Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble band on drums. But he has at times supplemented that trio with musical friends including former Doors guitarist, Robby Krieger, vocalist and former Rancho Mirage resident Shelby Lynne, and Austin guitar legend, Jimmie Vaughan. He says some desert pals could join him in Cathedral City. “You never know,” he said. “It’s a distinct possibility one or more of our desert dwelling friends might drop by. We’re projecting something of an on-stage party circumstance remaining quite open-minded with ‘crashers’ wanting to join in.”
Asked specifically if desert dwellers like Sorum or Homme might join in, he said, “There’s that chance. “Despite the fact we’ll be playing a casino, we don’t think it’s up to the oddsmakers. If it’s going to happen, the stars (the ones in the sky) will have to align. So, it’s possible, yet can’t really predict. Once inside the show, we’ll see what unfolds organically.”
The Billy Gibbons show begins at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25. Tickets from $49.50 for general admission
seating to $249.50 for the VIP Meet & Greet Experience are available at aguacalientecasinos.com/agua-
event/billy-f-gibbons/. The Agua Caliente Cathedral City is located at 68960 E. Palm Canyon Drive.
Bruce Fessier is a veteran entertainment writer who was the first print journalist named to the Coachella Valley Media Hall of Fame. Contact him at jbfess@gmail.com and follow him at facebook.com/bruce.fessier and instagram.com/bfesier/
Billy Gibbons & the BJG Band
The Beautiful Agua Caliente Casino in Cathedral City, CA
