Watch Billy Gibbons, Joe Bonamassa cover Jimi Hendrix at Gibbons' 72nd birthday jam in Los Angeles
Gilby Clarke was also on hand for the concert, which took place at the Troubadour
Last night – Thursday, December 16 – the mighty Billy Gibbons put on a concert at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in celebration of his 72nd birthday.
The ZZ Top electric guitar hero brought plenty of pals along for the ride as well, with blues guitar A-lister Joe Bonamassa joining Gibbons for a faithful, spot-on rendition of Jimi Hendrix's Foxy Lady, which you can check out above.
Gibbons – armed with one of his many heavily customized pinstriped SGs – trades some stingin' psychedelic blues solos with Bonamassa, who's sporting a positively gorgeous vintage (we assume) Gibson Les Paul.
Naturally, some ZZ Top tunes were also in the cards as well, with Bonamassa lending a hand for the group's rowdy take on the Texas trio's 1983 new-wave-by-way-of-the-blues mega-hit, Sharp Dressed Man.
Gilby Clarke – formerly of Guns N' Roses – also stopped by, assisting with the group's performance of "Sweet Home Los Angeles," a decidedly California-centric take on the blues standard, Sweet Home Chicago.
Visible below, the performance is another bastion of blues guitar bliss, with a round-robin of terrific, punchy, gain-heavy solos from the assembled six-string greats.
2021 has been a significant year for Gibbons, marked by both triumph – with the release of his West Coast-inspired solo album, Hardware – and tragedy, with the death of his longtime ZZ Top bandmate, Dusty Hill.
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With the reported blessing of Hill though, Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard have continued on with ZZ Top, touring with the band's longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, in Hill's place.
Gibbons also told Variety in July that Hill had recorded some bass and vocal parts for a new ZZ Top album, though added that they needed “completion work." It would be the band's first album of new material since 2012’s La Futura.
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Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.
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