Dusty Hill of ZZ Top performs during the Gang of Outlaws Tour at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on June 20, 2012. Courtesy Amiee Stubbs/NS2.

Unfortunately, only a week after I wrote a tribute to Biz Markie, I have to write another tribute, this time for ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill.

Hill, guitarist Billy Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard (he’s the one without a beard) have been playing together since 1969. All three were together for their entire 50-year run of success.

In Hill’s honor, here’s one of his songs along with four of his blues rock and Southern rock contemporaries. Let’s not do this again next week, OK? This is too many tributes already.

Speaking of too many tributes, before we begin: Hill wasn’t the only musician we lost this week. I’d like to recognize Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison, who also died. It just wasn’t a great week for rock.

ZZ Top — “La Grange”

I can’t not put a ZZ Top song on here, right? There’s never a wrong time for ZZ Top.

This is a list of the band’s contemporaries, yes, but the reason Hill and his bandmates are legends is because nobody sounded exactly like them. They took the blues rock template and added twists like the grungy distortion of early heavy metal and the easy road music pacing, setting them apart and making them a genre unto themselves.

So, for context, here’s a refresher. This 1973 tune, from before ZZ Top’s MTV days, is the pure form of ZZ Top.

Allman Brothers — “Midnight Rider”

It doesn’t make a ton of sense because of how ZZ Top’s career evolved into their signature Tejano sound by the late ’70s and early ‘80s while the Allman Brothers were more on the jam band end of the spectrum, but the two bands were both part of the Southern-influenced blues rock scene of the ‘70s.

Don’t believe me? Imagine this song with the distortion turned up on the guitar and the lyrics sung with a bit more of a growl. See? Similar roots.

Marshall Tucker Band — “Can’t You See”

When I mentioned “road music” in the first entry, this is the sort of thing I meant. The sort of song that evokes the feeling of driving down a long, open road at a steady pace. In the same way some songs are danceable, these are drivable.

It makes sense that these songs generally came from places like California and Texas, or from rural areas in the South. By the mid-’70s, the interstate highway system was 20 years old. Culture and society had become acclimated to the idea of cruising for long distances, so obviously in areas with a lot of open highway to drive, music would reflect it.

Outlaws — “Green Grass & High Tides”

Lynyrd Skynyrd is usually most closely associated with ZZ Top in terms of sound and influences [Gokhman note: And the last time both bands came through the Bay Area, they were together], but if you backed me into a corner I’d say the closest band to them musically is probably the Outlaws. Sure, the Outlaws employ vocal harmonies and two lead guitars, but Billy Jones’ flirtations with distortion and their overall attitude feel closest to me.

Of course, most recently this song is best known as one of the hardest ones to play in the game “Rock Band.” It’s like 10 minutes long, with two extended guitar solos, after all. Sure, “Through the Fire and Flames” in “Guitar Hero III” is technically harder, but at least it’s short.

The Black Keys — “Lonely Boy”

While Southern rock and blues rock have diminished along with, well, rock, there are some torchbearers to their legacy.

Unfortunately, the closest match musically is mid-era Kid Rock, after he was an embarrassing rapper but before he turned into a lazy jingoist country singer. I am not putting Kid Rock in my column. He’s not a good person for so, so many reasons.

You know who’s good, though? The Black Keys. This song especially reminds me a bit of something ZZ Top would release if they formed in 2009 rather than 1969. And that’s a good thing.

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.