Frank Beard (musician) played in the bands American Blues, the Warlocks, and the Cellar Dwellers. After honing their trademark "Texas boogie-blues-rock" style, they released their aptly titled "ZZ Top's First Album" on London Records in January 1971. When ZZ Top started, Beard was known by the nickname "Rube" and was credited as "Rube Beard" on the first album and on "Tres Hombres", the band's third album, but is listed under his real name on "Rio Grande Mud", their second album. After "Tres Hombres", he was credited as "Frank Beard" on all the band's albums. Ironically, despite his last name he is the only
Beard beheaded'. If it will do you any good, behead me." The act of shaving "would be to compromise his philosophical ideal of living in accordance with nature and it would be to submit to the unjustified authority of another." This was not a theoretical in the age of Epictetus, for the Emperor Domitian had the hair and beard forcibly shaven off of the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana "as punishment for anti-State activities." This disgraced Apollonius while avoiding making him a martyr like Socrates. Well before his declaration of "death before shaving" Epictetus had been forced to flee Rome when Domitian