"He kept to himself and would play a few local shows." Holland recently posted a few of the classical pieces on YouTube. "He didn't come out with any albums over the past few years," says his son, Holland Greig. Greig, who years ago relocated to Austin, also composed and recorded beautiful and grand classical music on piano. "He did a lot of session work and he was involved in a lot of pop music, but he loved jazz and improvisation and he was great at it, a natural," Schwartz says. He spent decades there doing session work as a keyboardist while also leading jazz duos and trios. "His parents were called, and they picked him up later on," Schwartz says.Īfter leaving ZZ Top, Greig eventually made his way to Los Angeles. Lanier waited until the officer got to his car, he rolled down his window and said, 'I'll take a cheeseburger and a large orange, please.'" "Like the night the police pulled him over in his car. "He was a great entertainer and a great entertainer off stage also," Schwartz says. In addition to admiring Greig's musical gifts, Schwartz also cited the keyboardist's sense of humor. 'The gloves are off': Uvalde mayor accuses DPS Director Steve McCraw of lying about events surrounding shooting.New Houston-area restaurant boasts waterfront views of Lake Conroe.3 major roadway closures could snarl Houston traffic this weekend.Musician Pharrell Williams pays off Texas HBCU student's loans.Astros' Jose Siri tweets about people's 'bad opinions' then quickly deletes it.How Jose Siri could have started a potential Astros-Mets feud.Houston's City Acre Brewing saved from closing by last-minute buyer.Schwartz calls Greig "my all night driving buddy if I was coming back from a show late at night, he'd call and keep me awake. Schwartz said Greig was a mentor to him at Memorial, and their friendship spanned decades. But he also seemed to come at everything from a different direction." First thing he did was look at his watch and said, 'There, I just blew up my little brother.' Which was very typical Lanier. The first two albums, especially so, as those were pressed in not too huge quantities to begin with. I'd just lost my keyboardist, so I had an interview with Lanier. Original London ZZ Top vinyl in clean, well cared for condition which is not excessively noisy or poorly pressed is scarce. "His perspective on everything was just a little different. "He was as important as anybody in the sound of that band," Ford says. After years out of print, Ford and the Fanatics will have their recordings digitized and reissued later this year, which should draw some attention to Greig's playing. In 1967 the group placed first in the Houston Post's Teen Music Contest. ZZ Top was nominated for three Grammy Awards: in 1983 for best rock performance by a group for the album "Eliminator," in 1986 in the same category for the album "Afterburner" and this year for best music film for "That Little Ol' Band From Texas.Prior to his time with ZZ Top, Greig, a Memorial High School grad, was a member of Neal Ford and the Fanatics, a wildly popular band in Houston in the 1960s. Their videos for "Legs," "Gimme All Your Lovin'" and "Sharp Dressed Man" would all be featured in heavy rotation on MTV in the '80s. But the ranking belies the song's staying power, thanks to a highly stylized music video in the art form's early years. "Legs," from the "Eliminator" album, was the 60th biggest Billboard hit of 1984. The Texas natives - with Gibbons and Hill sporting long, distinctive beards and the trio wearing dark sunglasses - would go on to become one of the most recognizable bands of the 1980s.
Three years later, they broke through commercially with "La Grange," a funky blues song in the style of Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips" that paid tribute to the Chicken Ranch, a notorious brothel outside the Texas town of La Grange. Their debut release, "ZZ Top's First Album," came out in 1970.