When my buddy Ken texted me last week that Rick Derringer passed away, I was floored with sadness. He was always one of my music heroes, not just guitar heroes. Yes, he could play guitar, but he had such an ear for music, he was a top producer in the pop and rock genres.
Rick left us on May 26th at the age of 77. Ironically, a few days earlier, I had just finished setting up a Fender Stratocaster and the first thing I played on it was the opening chords to “Free Ride,” which he recorded with Edgar Winter. He was with Winter’s band during its heyday in the early 1970s when “Frankenstein” was also getting heavy airplay on rock stations.
His first big break came when his band The McCoys had a huge garage-band hit with “Hang On Sloopy” in 1965. That song was a Number 1, keeping The Beatles’ “Yesterday” off of the top spot for a few weeks. As that band started to lose its drive, Rick and a few members soon became the backup band for Johnny Winter. It was during this time that his songwriting skills came into play when he wrote the classic “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” for Johnny as a rock/blues crossover song to help boost Johnny’s career.
Due to Johnny Winter’s increasing drug problem, Rick moved to working with Edgar Winter, appearing on the aforementioned hits as well as handling production duties. In 1974, he decided to go solo, and re-recorded “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” for his first album, All American Boy. The song had a much more rock feel to it, and it became his biggest solo hit, reaching Number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming a staple on classic rock radio stations. For me, it is the production that he did on that song. He played all of the guitar parts, as well as the bass and tambourine. He layered each guitar perfectly to have this perfect wall of sound. The riffs and licks on that are what every young aspiring rock guitar player wants to emulate.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he produced or played guitar for a number of artists, including Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren, Air Supply, Meat Loaf, Cyndi Lauper and Barbra Streisand. Through his work with Lauper, he produced The Wrestling Album for the World Wrestling Federation in 1985. He also wrote several of the album’s theme songs, including the theme song for Hulk Hogan, “Real American.” The song was used for a number of campaign stops by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump.
He was also well known for producing six of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s comedy albums, receiving his only Grammy award during that time. He began to step away from the production end, claiming that he did not want to be thought of as a comedy record expert.
In 1997, Rick became an Evangelical Christian, and with his wife and children, produced four Christian music albums. He also worked for a while in the early 2000s with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice. During his later years in the 21st century, he toured with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band and Peter Frampton’s Guitar Circus.
Just last week, he died peacefully in his sleep after being taken off of life support from medical complications.
There is so much that Rick had his hands in when it came to music. You could tell from his history that he was passionate about it. His production work aside, I think that his guitar work was rock and roll perfection, the way that Keith Richards’ work is perfection. Nothing flashy, but just enough movement to make the solo fit perfectly into the song.
I could go on, but I leave this with one last thought. I remember seeing a photo of Rick on stage, probably taken in the late 1970s, where he is playing a BC Rich Mockingbird guitar. I thought that he looked so incredibly cool, and to this day, I would love to get myself a Mockingbird guitar specifically because of that photo.
Rick, I know that you and Johnny Winter are now jamming out up there in the sky. You will always be one of my guitar heroes.
Chew on it and comment.
Luegra 