* En anglais uniquement
Though the world sees
ZZ Top as a trio, everyone associated with the band -- including the members themselves -- have come to view the group as a quartet with manager/producer
Bill Ham sharing equal billing. In a business full of eccentrics, oddballs, and control freaks,
Ham is perhaps the granddaddy of them all, controlling and guiding
ZZ's career with the tact of a wrecking ball and the grip of a boa constrictor.
Born just south of Dallas,
Ham's early forays into the music business came as a
Pat Boone-type crooner who recorded a single for the Dot label before switching over to record distribution at Houston-based H.W. Daily's. When the ambitious
Ham overheard a young
Billy Gibbons (who was then with
the Moving Sidewalks) at a Texas club, he saw star power in the young guitarist and offered his services as a manager. Determined to build a group around
Gibbons,
Ham and
Billy hammered away until they found a
ZZ Top lineup that was suitable for world domination.
Ham spent the next several years shrewdly building the band's reputation, cutting costs whenever possible and using his fast-talking routine to secure
ZZ top billing. It was
Ham who produced the group's albums,
Ham who somehow regained ownership of the group's masters when they left
London Records,
Ham who hatched the idea for the famous World Wide Texas Tour that included live animals on-stage, and it was
Ham who methodically oversaw the band's entire existence -- both public and private -- passing rules of conduct like the one that stated the bandmembers weren't allowed to go to clubs in their off time, lest they be seen by the public and ruin their mystique.
In the late '70s, and with
ZZ's position in the rock community secure,
Ham branched out and worked with other artists such as
Kinky Friedman and Point Blank, but his claim to fame remains as the guiding force behind
ZZ Top's four-decade success. ~ Steve Kurutz