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ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons (pictured above, 2nd from right) will reunite with his former band, Moving Sidewalks, for the first time in 44 years.

The New York Times reports that before ZZ Top became a blues-rock band known for gritty, boogie-based rhythms, sizzling guitar flights, humorous lyrics and luxuriously long beards, it was a Houston-based psychedelic proto-punk garage band called the Moving Sidewalks.

And though its following was decidedly regional at the time – its biggest hit, “99th Floor,” was a chart-topper in Houston for six weeks in 1967 – the group’s recordings can be found on more than half a dozen compilations of 1960s garage band tracks, not to mention the ZZ Top anthology “Chrome, Smoke & BBQ: The ZZ Top Box.”

The group also recently released its own archival trove, “Moving Sidewalks – The Complete Collection”, which brings together its only album, “Flash” (1969), a handful of singles (including a bruising cover of the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand”) and several outtakes.

And now, with ZZ Top between tours, Billy Gibbons, the guitarist and founder of both bands, has reconvened the Moving Sidewalks for a gig at B.B. King Blues Club and Grill in Manhattan on March 30.

Read more with Gibbons at the New York Post here.

There’s more on the Moving Sidewalks at hennemusic here.