Kenny Durand

Everybody knows that Willie's guitar is named "Trigger," but did y'all know that Billy Gibbons' (ZZ Top) guitar is named " Pearly Gates?" You did? Okay, okay ... so you knew that, but did you know how Pearly Gates got its name? I do, and it's a great Texas story. In 1968, Billy was playing with the Moving Sidewalks, the Houston psychedelic rock band that preceded ZZ Top. He had become fascinated with Eric Clapton's Gibson Les Paul sound and wanted a sunburst Les Paul of his own. Around that time, Billy and some friends jointly owned an old Packard car. A young actress friend named Renee Thomas needed transportation from Houston to Hollywood for a movie audition, so they loaned her the Packard, although nobody was particularly confident it would survive the journey. As Billy later recalled, “We didn't think the car would make it past El Paso.” But the Packard made it all the way to Hollywood, and Renee got the part! Everybody figured the car must have some sort of divine connection to Renee's good fortune, so they nicknamed that Packard "Pearly Gates," being that it had delivered Renee to the "promised land" of California. Eventually, Renee called back to Texas and asked whether she should return the automobile or sell it. Billy told her to sell it and send the money home. Meanwhile, about that same time, a Houston musician told Billy about a rancher outside Houston who had once played country music but had since turned his attention to raising cattle. According to the musician, the rancher had an old Gibson Les Paul tucked away beneath a bed, so Billy drove out to check it out. The rancher produced a beautiful 1959 sunburst Les Paul Standard. The asking price was $250. As luck would have it, Billy's share of the money from the Packard's sale had arrived that very day. It was exactly enough to purchase the guitar. The coincidence was too good to ignore. The old Packard had carried a young woman to Hollywood and helped launch her acting career, and now its sale had provided Billy with the guitar he'd been dreaming about. So the name "Pearly Gates" passed from the automobile to Billy's new (old) Les Paul. We all know the rest of the story. Pearly Gates became Billy's principal recording guitar and an essential ingredient in ZZ Top's music, appearing on classics including “La Grange,” “Tush," “Jesus Just Left Chicago" and just about ever other ZZ Top song you can think of. That throaty ZZ Top sound and gutbucket tone? That's Pearly Gates. I just read an interview in Guitar Player magazine in which Billy says that a Japanese collector had offered him $5 million for it, but Billy could not sell it. It's understandable. So, all in all, Billy got a pretty good ROI for a $250 guitar purchased with the proceeds from an old Packard that nobody thought would make it past El Paso. See? Once I know a story, I have no choice but to inflict it on y'all! Shown here: a young Billy Gibbons with Pearly Gates.