Anschar Diamonds Blog

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you fun songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, the members of ZZ Top tick off a list of jewelry-wardrobe must-haves in their 1983 classic, “Sharp Dressed Man.”



Original band members Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard share their tips about snappy accessorizing in the second verse.

They sing, “Gold watch, diamond ring / I ain’t missin’ not a single thing / Cufflinks, stick pin / When I step out I’m gonna do you in / They come runnin’ just as fast as they can / ‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man.”

Written by Gibbons, Beard and Joe Michael Hill, “Sharp Dressed Man” appeared as the third track on ZZ Top’s popular 1983 album Eliminator. The album sold more than 10 million copies, earning it a Diamond certification.

The single topped out at #56 on the US Billboard 100 and remains one of ZZ Tops’ most enduring signature songs. The group performed it live at the 1997 VH1 Fashion Awards and during the halftime festivities of the 2008 Orange Bowl.

“Sharp dressed depends on who you are,” Hill told Spin magazine in 1985. “If you’re on a motorcycle, really sharp leather is great. If you’re a punk rocker, you can get sharp that way. You can be sharp or not sharp in any mode.”

Founded in Houston in 1969 as a blues-inspired rock band, ZZ Top featured its three core members from 1970 until Hill's untimely death in 2021 at age 72. The band continues to tour with the bassist-vocalist duties passed on to Elwood Francis, who had been the band's guitar tech for three decades.

Gibbons told Q magazine that their first gig at a Knights of Columbus Hall outside of Houston in 1970 was attended by just one person.

“We shrugged and pressed onwards,” he said. “We took a break halfway through, went out and bought him a Coke.”

Over the course of the following 54 years, the band would go on to sell more than 50 million albums worldwide. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

Please check out ZZ Top’s live performance of “Sharp Dressed Man.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“Sharp Dressed Man”
Written by Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard and Joe Michael Hill. Performed by ZZ Top.

Clean shirt, new shoes
And I don’t know where I am goin’ to
Silk suit, black tie,
I don’t need a reason why
They come runnin’ just as fast as they can
‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man

Gold watch, diamond ring,
I ain’t missin’ not a single thing
Cufflinks, stick pin,
When I step out I’m gonna do you in
They come runnin’ just as fast as they can
‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man

Top coat, top hat,
And I don’t worry ’cause my wallet’s fat
Black shades, white gloves,
Lookin’ sharp lookin’ for love
They come runnin’ just as fast as they can
‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man



Credit: Photo by Tilly antoine, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Former professional skateboarder, snowboarder and three-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White dug deep into his bag of tricks to deliver a surprise marriage proposal to actress Nina Dobrev with a flawless, oval-cut 5-carat diamond ring.



White conspired with his publicist to send a fake invitation for Dobrev to attend an exclusive dinner with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour at The Golden Swan Restaurant in New York City's West Village. Knowing that his girlfriend would never pass up such an opportunity, he also arranged for a pre-dinner styling session, so she would look absolutely perfect.

When she arrived at the restaurant's private room, Dobrev froze as she was greeted — not by the Vogue editor — but by her now-fiancé. White went down on one knee and proposed under an arch of white flowers.



Dobrev told Vogue that she was in shock and doesn't remember exactly how White proposed, but she did recall that he said "all the right things."

After she accepted his proposal, the couple shared champagne and caviar with some friends and partied into the evening.



Page Six Style reported that the ring was designed by celebrity jeweler Lorraine Schwartz, who described the gem as “a flawless diamond for a flawless girl.”

White and Dobrev had been dating for five years, and the ring has been burning a hole in White's pocket for six months. He originally planned to pop the question to Dobrev during their summer vacation, but she fractured her knee in a biking accident and the proposal was put on hold until she completed her rehabilitation.



Then, he was all set to propose during their planned trip to Cape Town, South Africa, in November, but friends of the couple started asking too many questions about his intentions. Once again, his plans were thwarted.

The fake invitation did catch Dobrev by surprise.

"He made the invite look so legitimate," she told Vogue.

On October 30, Dobrev and White turned to their Instagram pages to share pics of their surprise proposal in Lower Manhattan.

Dobrev wrote, "RIP boyfriend, hello fiancé" and punctuated her statement with two emojis, an engagement ring and an infinity sign.

"She said YES," confirmed White on his page, while punctuating his comment with the same two emojis.

According to the Daily Mail, Dobrev and White first met during a brief encounter at the 2012 Teen Choice Awards, but were formally introduced in 2019.

The 38-year-old White is a three-time Olympic gold medalist in half-pipe snowboarding. Dobrev, 35, is best known for portraying Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce in CW's The Vampire Diaries (2009–2015).

The couple has yet to announce wedding plans.

Credits: Images via Instagram / niña, Instagram / shaunwhite.

A team of archeologists from the US and Egypt has unearthed a jewelry-laden tomb near Luxor that dates back 4,000 years to the 12th and 13th Dynasties. The team discovered beautiful necklaces, bracelets, armlets, scarab rings and decorative belts made of amethyst, carnelian, garnet, blue-green glazed faience (ceramic) and feldspar.



The amulets feature carved gemstones that resemble characters of the natural and spiritual worlds: a hippo, hawk, snake, ba (bird with human head), Eye of Horus and the fertility goddess Taweret, among others.



One standout necklace is strung with 30 amethyst barrel beads with an amazonite ba-shaped amulet in the center. Another exquisite piece is a belt crafted of carnelian ball beads connected by double strings of blue faience ring beads.



Two burials also contained copper or copper alloy mirrors with elegantly carved ivory handles.

The items were discovered by the Egyptian-American mission South Asasif Conservation Project, which works under the auspices of Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The Middle Kingdom tomb with 11 intact burials was found as the team was clearing the south side of the superstructure of the 25th Dynasty tomb of Karabasken.

While the burials were significantly damaged by previous floods, which destroyed the wood of the coffins and the linen wrappings, items that were impervious to water remained intact. This is why the recovered jewelry is in such pristine condition. The jewelry was found "in situ" (in its original positioning among the skeletal remains), which allowed the team to determine how the jewelry might have been worn.



According to Dr. Afaf Wahba, the burials contained the skeletons of five women, two men and three children. It is believed that they represented many generations of the same family.

Dr. Wahba noted that most of the jewelry was found in among female burials. The children and one of the men did not have any burial goods.



Interestingly, one of the male burials contained what he called "an imposing necklace" consisting of 40 faience ball beads, each separated by a single faience cylinder bead. Two cylindrical carnelian beads flank a hippo head amulet on the back.

The items in the tomb date back to the 12th and 13th Dynasties of Egypt (1938 BC-1630 BC). The tomb is the first from the Middle Kingdom period to be discovered in the South Asasif area, which is located near the west bank of the Nile next to the Temple of Hatshepsut.

Credits: Images courtesy of the South Asasif Conservation Project.

Morgan Perigo of McMaster University's Class of 1965 never expected to see his graduation ring again after losing it in the surf along the coast of Barbados in 1977. But thanks to the good nature of a Barbados professional free diver named Alex Davis and the helpful alumni staff at the university, Perigo got to wear the ring again on his 83rd birthday.



John Travolta was starring in Saturday Night Fever and a gallon of gas cost 66 cents when Perigo, his wife and their two young sons traveled from their home in Canada to enjoy a vacation on the sandy beaches of Barbados.

Perigo remembered the exact moment his ring went missing in the shallow waters off the coast of Barbados' Miami Beach near the town of Oistins.

“One day I took my younger son and waded into the ocean," he told McMaster University Daily News in an email. "He was knocked over by a wave, so I reached to grab hold of him. He pulled on my hand and my Mac alumni ring came off.”

Perigo and his family searched for the ring, but were unsuccessful.

Flash forward to mid-October 2024 at the same beach, where we find Davis trying out a new metal detector in the recently churned-up shallows. Hurricane Beryl, a category 4 storm, caused heavy damage when it struck the island in July of this year, but it also shifted the sands, which was a boon to metal-detector enthusiasts.



Davis was snorkeling with his metal detector when the unit sounded an alert. Davis told CBC Hamilton that he dug down at least 15 centimeters, but all he found were rocks. The metal detector kept buzzing, so the diver kept digging. At 30 centimeters deep, he noticed a flash of gold.

"It catches your eye like nothing else," he told the outlet. "Your heart starts to race."

What he pulled from the sand was a nicely preserved McMaster University class ring mounted with a deep red stone.

Davis set out to find the rightful owner by emailing a photo and explanation to the university.

“I found a McMaster University signet ring with three initials on the inside,” he wrote to McMaster University's Alumni Department. “I found it metal detecting in Barbados this morning and suspect it’s been lost for some time.”

His email reached alumni officer Laura Escalante, who set out to solve the mystery with only two clues, both engraved on the slightly tarnished ring: the year 1965 and the initials FMP. Her quest eventually led her to mathematics major Frederick Morgan Perigo.

Reached by email, Perigo confirmed the ring was his.

“This is unbelievable news,” he wrote back.

Escalante then got to work connecting Perigo and Davis and helping coordinate the return of the ring. She called the successful reunion one of the happiest moments of her career and said the story has touched the hearts of McMaster alumni staff.

"The stars aligned and the water was clear," Davis told CBC Hamilton. "Mr. Perigo's ring was a hell of a find."

The long-lost ring arrived at Perigo's home in Burlington, ON, the day before his 83rd birthday.

“What a wonderful unexpected 83rd birthday present,” he told McMaster University Daily News.

Credits: Images courtesy of Alex Davis and Morgan Perigo via McMaster University Daily News.