Zz top - that little ol'band from texas | documentaire | arte | Jean Lian

Available until June 18, 2026 Canadian director Sam Dunn—best known for his 2018 ARTE documentary on Alice Cooper—has turned his attention to the American blues-rock trio ZZ Top, a band as famous as its history is little-known. How did Billy F. Gibbons, Dusty Hill (who passed away in 2021), and Frank Beard—eccentric blues fans who spent ten years playing the seediest bars in Texas—manage to propel themselves into the spotlight? For ZZ Top, formed in 1969, is one of the few bands from that era to have survived without ever changing its lineup. Fifty years later, their oversized beards—Frank Beard, the misnamed one, never goes beyond a goatee—their cowboy style, and their riffs imbued with a touch of almost mystical surrealism continue to win over audiences and critics alike. A look back in pictures at the band’s colorful journey, which led to their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.