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It seems
like Rick Derringer has been on the rock & roll scene forever — actually,
it's only been since 1965, which makes him one of the more enduring
veterans of his generation. Derringer's work with his band the McCoys
in his midteens, highlighted by the bubblegum anthem "Hang On Sloopy,"
gave him a claim to low-level rock & roll immortality, and his subsequent
playing with Johnny (and later Edgar) Winter provided him with a degree
of credibility that a lot of guitar players can only envy, especially
after the release of the Edgar Winter live double album Roadwork.
Derringer began getting production experience with the McCoys, but they
were never able to overcome their bubblegum rock image, and by the end
of the 1960s, Derringer and his brother Randy were recruited by Johnny
Winter into his band, with Derringer playing guitar and also producing.
He emerged as a solo artist in the wake of his playing with Edgar Winter's
White Trash. Derringer first became popular in his own right during
the early/mid-'70s, beginning with a new version of his own "Rock &
Roll, Hoochie Koo" (which Johnny Winter had covered for him a few years
earlier) off Derringer's heavy metal-influenced debut album, All American
Boy. Derringer soon had his own band, called Derringer, on the road
— although his guitarist and bassist, Danny Johnson and Kenny Aaronson,
left in 1977 to form Axis — and within a couple of years had established
himself as a popular favorite.
Derringer's recorded history was somewhat spotty, however, as his record
sales never matched his favor with concert audiences — a huge gap also
existed between releases, which didn't bother him; even in the late
'90s, Derringer played close to 200 shows a year. He spent most of the
late '70s and 1980s, however, as a producer, working with artists as
diverse as Bette Midler, Kiss, Meat Loaf, Cyndi Lauper, Barbra Streisand,
and Weird Al Yankovic.
Derringer is known for his hard-rocking live shows, which don't necessarily
translate well to recordings, or lend themselves to much originality.
As he neared age 50 in the 1990s, however, he had mellowed, and this
showed when he began recording again for Shrapnel Records in 1993 with
the albums Back to the Blues and Electra Blues. Years of fair to average
rock and adult contemporary albums followed, but in 2002 Derringer did
an about-face and tried his hands at jazz with the adventurous Free
Ride.
This
bio courtesy www.allmusic.com
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