“We … will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature, and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top.’ members Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard said.

ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill, who played with the Texas blues-rock trio for over 50 years, died Tuesday at age 72.

“We are saddened by the news today that our Compadre, Dusty Hill, has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, Texas,” surviving members Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard said in a statement.

“We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature, and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top’.

We were so blessed to share the stage with the great Dusty and ZZ Top many times, and if that wasn’t rock & roll heaven, I don’t know what is.

The show we did together just last week would be his last.

Throughout all that time, the lineup stayed just Hill, Gibbons, and Beard, making them one of the most stable acts in rock history. .

“It’s a cliché and sounds so simplistic, but it’s down to the three of us genuinely enjoying playing together,” Hill explained to Classic Rock in 2010.

“People would look at us onstage, drop their jaws, and moan,” Hill told Rolling Stone in 1974.

“I just wanted to feel normal,” Hill said in 2019.

During the downtime, Hill and Gibbons grew long beards.

They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 by Keith Richards.

The group was forced to cancel a few shows, and they played with a replacement earlier this month when Hill was forced to head back to Texas to deal with a hip issue