ZZ Top: How Dusty Hill & Frank Beard Impersonated The Zombies (Time Of the Season)

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The Zombies were an english rock band who enjoyed success in the 60’s with a string of hits songs including Tell Her No & She’s Not There. By 1967 the band had disbanded following a less than stellar commercial performance of their album The Odyssey and The Miracle. Even though the band broke up in 1967, by 1969 they had another hit with Time of the Season, which was a slow burner eventually reached the number 3 spot on the billboard charts. While the single was successful and demand was growing for the group, the former members of the Zombies weren’t even aware of their new found fame across the pond in the US. The band members were now focused on other musical projects.

It would be the idea of a shady promoter named Delta Promotions to assemble two fake lineups of The Zombies to tour the US to cash in on the band’s popularity. It would be ironic that at one point Delta Promotions used to be a reputable company representing Question Mark and the Mysterians who actually opened a show for the fake Zombies., And in more recent years Delta realized they could make more money doing illegal activities including managing fake bands than they could managing real bands. At one point they also managed a fake version of the Animals who toured across the states. On top of that some members of the company were arrested by the police for allegedly selling drugs out of their office.

Delta Promotions had two fake lineups of the Zombies tourin the US. One was based out of Michigan while the other and best known lineup was based out of Texas and was made up of future ZZ top s members bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard. This is an actual press photo of the lineup. Of course they used aliases on promotional materials using the names D Cruz and Chris Page. The future rhythm section of ZZ Top would be joined by Two dallas musicians named Mark Ramsey and Sebastian Meador who rounded out the group.

Keep in mind this was the late 60’s before the days of the internet. Many people back then had no idea what the Zombies looked like or how many people were in the band. The only people who would’ve been able to pick apart the inconsistencies were die hard fans. Some of the inconsitencies included that the fake Texas zombies band members wore cowboy hats and only had 4 members while the real Zombies lineup were british, had 5 members, including a keyboardist. Anyone who asked about the keyboard player would be told by member dusty hill, that he was locked up in jail in Texas.

It was a buzzfeed article from 2016 that dove deep into how this whole arrangement happened. Some of the members of the texas based band weren’t even aware themselves of who the zombies exactly were. The article would interview member Mark Ramsay who recalled

"I was told the Zombies didn't exist — that they were only a studio sound," "I was just excited and flattered. I'd only been playing for a few years and the other guys were pro-level at that point. I didn't look at it as anything more than a chance to have some fun, hang out with some cool guys, learn some songs, go somewhere outside of this Hillbillyville, and earn a little money."

The 50’s and 60’s era of American Rock N’ Roll was a lot different than now. Back then musicians were seen as disposable. During the doo-wop era if one member of a group became outspoken against either their label or management they would soon be replaced with a more agreeable member. In this pre-internet era fans were none the wiser and given the Zombies inactivity they were ripe for exploiting.

If anybody questioned the management company they would use the standard dodge that one original member was in the lineup even though that wasn’t true. The company would also claim they had legally acquired the rights to the Zombies catalog of songs which also wasn’t true.

The story took another strange turn when prior to touring as the fake zombies Delta Promotions sent the Texas quartet out on tour pretending to be another disbanded group called Rose Garden. They were a california based folk band who had one hit song in 1967 with ‘Next Plane to London.’ The band only learnt their one hit song and the rest of the set was made up of blues songs. The tour went off without a hitch, despite the fact that the real lineup of Rose Garden had a female lead singer, but no audiences really pressed the band about the inconsistencies. Following the successful tour the quartet met on