Dusty Hill's 1983 Dean Explorer Custom "Fur" Bass
Musician
Dusty Hill
(American, 1949 - 2021)
Maker
Dean Guitars
(American, founded 1977)
Date1983
ClassificationsMusic
DescriptionDusty Hill's 1983 Dean Explorer style bass, no serial number, in sheepskin finish with ZZ Top logo painted on the fretboard, mounting holes on back of guitar where it attached to a rig worn around the waist to make it spin. This bass, and its matching fur guitar, were used in the music video ZZ Top's single "Legs" from their album Eliminator (1983).
Dean Zelinsky, who created the instruments, wrote about them on his website's blog: "One night, I received a 3am phone call...it's Gibbons. He was on tour in the UK and had the guys from Def Leppard with him. He wanted to hook them up with some Dean Guitars. A little disoriented from the late night call, I spent about a half an hour on the phone working out the details...then at the very end of the conversation Billy drops the line, 'I'm sending you some sheepskins I purchased while in Scotland, I want you to put them on some guitars.' Weeks later, the sheepskins showed up and I got to work. I made a matching pair of Dean Z guitar and bass, painted them white including the fingerboards, painted the Eliminator logo down the necks and applied the sheepskins. I cleared a path down the center with electric horse sheers to accept the pickups, tailpiece and strings. I remember we were still gluing the fur on the tuning keys when the FedEx driver showed up to pick up the guitars. He waited while we boxed them up, they had to make it to the video shoot the very next day."
