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 men were clean-shaven. 16th-century beards were allowed to grow to an amazing length (see the portraits of John Knox, Bishop Gardiner, Cardinal Pole and Thomas Cranmer). Some beards of this time were the Spanish spade beard, the English square cut beard, the forked beard, and the stiletto beard. In 1587 Francis Drake claimed, in a figure of speech, to have singed the King of Spain's beard. During the Chinese Qing dynasty (1644-1911), the ruling Manchu minority were either clean-shaven or at most wore mustaches, in contrast to the Han majority who still wore beards in keeping with the Confucian ideal.