TDC: Rick Derringer

[Willie G. Moseley]

Back in the day, how many budding guitarists didn't develop their chops around the three-chord stomp of "Hang On sloopy"?

And how many didn't ultimately riff on "Rock & Roll,  Hoochi Koo"?

Derringer's career was much longer and more varied that a lot of people realize, and he appreciated old instruments as well.

Eloquent interiewee, and this photo was taken at a Dallas guitar show  in the late '90s, IIRC. Will tweak this post of I can find out...

Edited May 27, 2025 by Willie G. Moseley

[JGale]

Nooooooooooooo!

[tbonesullivan]

I saw this like half an hour ago. Waiting to see if it's true, but I keep seeing more about it. As best I can see he was having some diabetic complications in his legs earlier this year.

[Dave Scepter]

Oh no! 😪

[Steve Haynie]

Rick Derringer played with everybody back in the 70's.  Everybody is going to miss him. 

[hamerhead]

Dammit.

[specialk]

7 hours ago, Willie G. Moseley said:

how many budding guitarists didn't develop their chops around the three-chord stomp of "Hang On sloopy"?

 

[diablo175]

Just saw this on social media. Damn. I was so enamored with Rock N Roll Hoochie Coo.

[Dave Scepter]

 

 

[Dave Scepter]

And my favorite song for YEARS!.. This song was on a whole new level~

 

Edited May 28, 2025 by Dave Scepter

[specialk]

[veatch]

 

 

[Cboss]

That girl made my whole morning

[kizanski]

The headline on CNN.com.

All the artists he worked with, all of the famous songs he played on and that's what they put in the headline.
Stupid fucking talentless accordion-playing douche Weird Al. 

[Steve Haynie]

1 hour ago, kizanski said:

The headline on CNN.com.

All the artists he worked with, all of the famous songs he played on and that's what they put in the headline.
Stupid fucking talentless accordion-playing douche Weird Al. 

Weird Al ain't the douche.  It is the editor who let that get out.

[DaveL]

I always thought he was cool,  always used to stare at the cover of guitars and women when I was a kid… 

     I didn’t realize he wrote and produced “still alive and well”.  What a kickass tune.     

[kizanski]

1 hour ago, Steve Haynie said:

Weird Al ain't the douche.  It is the editor who let that get out.

I have no respect for someone with such an extensive library of song parodies.

Song parodies are the low hanging fruit of all music.

He should have been a prop comic with suspenders and a quirky voice, smashing a watermelon here and there.

Fucking hack.

[Willie G. Moseley]

^^^I take it Kiz ain't a Spike Jones fan either...but Derringer was.

I need to try to find that first interview I did with Derringer in the late '90s. Therein, IIRC, he noted winning a Grammy for his work with Yankovic...but it wasn't a statue or trophy; it was a plaque or a framed certificate. I'll try to suss out the details.

[kizanski]

4 minutes ago, Willie G. Moseley said:

^^^I take it Kiz ain't a Spike Jones fan either...but Derringer was.

I was.

When I was 10.

[Jakeboy]

A friend of mine who knew him well said he was a really nice guy too.

[alantig]

9 hours ago, kizanski said:

I was.

When I was 10.

You shouldn't have grown up.  We still have fart jokes down here.

[Biz Prof]

My band opened for him in Raleigh in '94. A monster player and genuinely nice guy. He played my P-90 Special for a couple of minutes and said, "Hmm. Nice guitar." 

[tbonesullivan]

Yeah, probably not the best headline, but don't knock Al for it. They probably had the choice of that, Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo, Hang On Sloopy, working with Edgar Winter, working with Steely Dan (and getting them a record deal), working with Todd Rundgren, working with Jim Steinman, working with Meatloaf, working with Cyndi Lauper, working with Hulk Hogan, and like 500 other incredible things he did in the music world.

He produced Weird Al's FIRST SIX albums. And that was at the same time he was working with Barbra Streisand, Cyndi Lauper, etc., so he certainly was in demand at the time. As a Weird Al fan I know the story, or at least the public one, and pretty much without Derringer there might never have been a Weird Al, or he'd still be sending in tapes to Dr. Demento. Derringer pulled a bunch of strings to get Weird Al in the studio, and the only reason he wasn't producing all the albums is because Yankovic self-produced every album after the UHF soundtrack.

Now I'm gonna go back to listening to Frankenstein, Free Ride, Chain Lightning, and the solo from Making Love Out of Nothing at All on loop as I go to sleep surrounded by my weird al albums.

[kizanski]

So we have Derringer to blame for Weird Al.  

[tbonesullivan]

26 minutes ago, kizanski said:

So we have Derringer to blame for Weird Al.  

Yep! Weird Al won a grammy for the song "Eat it", which Derringer produced, and also played the guitar solo on. I honestly might like it better than the EVH solo on the original.