Rick Derringer and his compadres in the McCoys smashed their way into the pantheon of rock and roll in the mid ’60s with the three-chord anthem “Hang On Sloopy,” a loping sing-a-long with an irresistible hook.
But Derringer’s experience transcends a pop single to musical associations with Johnny and Edgar Winter, as well as his solo recordings and work as a noted producer.
The guitarist had a plethora of activity slated for 1998, when Vintage Guitar conversed with him; six were scheduled for release that year, and he discussed everything from his early days to his fabled ’50s Explorer to current projects. There were several surprises in his recollections.
Derringer grew up in Ft. Recovery, Ohio, about 50 miles northwest of Dayton.
Since “Sloopy” broke out when you were 16 years old, one might assume The McCoys were your first band.
Yeah, but we had gone through a couple of name changes. When I was 11 or 12, my neighbor’s folks got him a Fender Jazz Bass and a Bassman amp, and I started to show him how to play. The Ventures were heroes of mine, and when I pulled out my most-current Ventures album, I found what I thought was the easiest song, “The McCoy.” I thought it was cool, and I figured if we called ourselves The McCoys, we’d have a theme song.
I had been playing guitar since I was nine, and I started on electric. I had a Supro and a small Gibson amp; I was very happy with that setup. The Supro was one of those three-pickup models with gold hardware and lots of knobs.
Did you own any other notable early guitars?
After the Supro, I went on to a Gretsch Silver Jet. I really wanted a Strat, but my dad was a pragmatic guy. He probably thought Strats, with a bolt-on neck, weren’t too substantial. He liked glued-on necks, so he always figured I should have a Gibson or something like that, and I probably decided on that Silver Jet because I liked the way it looked.
Was your father a player?
He wasn’t. If he had been, he might have gone for the Strat (chuckles)!
A lot of teenaged boys back then probably dreamed of being a rock star. but you were in the unique position of being a teenager and a rock star.
It was a dream come true, but let me say that while every teenage boy might want to be a rock star, it can get to be too much; it destroys a lot of people. I was 16, graduating from school, but if I hadn’t had a pragmatic upbringing that had given me some stability, it could have destroyed me. You’re thrown into a situation where you’re offered everything – good things and bad things – by everyone, everywhere you go, all the time. Luckily, I had been brought up right and was mature enough.
Why do you think “Hang On Sloopy” became a hit?
It crosses a lot of boundaries. It’s almost like “world music” and borders on being a Latin-influenced song. It’s more than just American rock, and because of that, it became a worldwide success. The year before, it had been a #1 R&B hit by the Vibrations called “My Girl Sloopy.” So when our version came out, a lot of black stations played it! On our first tour, we played a lot of black clubs where they thought we were a black band when they booked us. It crossed into that audience.
Immediate Records released it in England, and it went to #1 there, as well. It was also the first rock and roll record to be played in Red Square, in Moscow, where they were trying to turn the proletariat on to some Western music, I guess. All of that happened in 1965 and early ’66. It was a good song for a lot of reasons.
We lucked out. We were young white boys who looked like the Beatles. We dressed like the Beatles. It all added up.
Few people were aware the song was a cover of an R&B tune.
Yeah, they used to call it “race music.” The people handling us were probably conscious of being able to take advantage of young people, so maybe they were conscious of being able to take advantage of black people, as well
If “Sloopy” crossed over as an R&B cover, why was the follow-up a cover of Peggy Lee’s “Fever?”
Well, we hadn’t been taught we were as smart as anybody else (chuckles), and since “Sloopy” had been such a smash, we figured somebody must have known more about what would be good for our career – somebody who knew what was going on and knew what kind of decisions to make. We were just naive kids from the Midwest who were happy to be told what to do; we thought that as long as we followed orders, the success would continue.
So, we were following the mandates handed down by our producers and managers, and it was their decision to do the Peggy Lee song. In some ways, they looked at it like “Hang On Sloopy.” It had a riff we could do on guitar and bass and didn’t have too many changes. Also, it was originally a Little Willie John song, so I think they thought “Fever” could get the same kind of treatment. They got similar results, but it wasn’t as big as “Hang On Sloopy.” “Fever” didn’t have that big chorus; there’s something about a big hold note at the beginning of a chorus that really sells it.
Do you recall any notable performances from those times?
Oh yeah. Some of the black clubs we played during the first tour, like one in Chicago, where they didn’t expect to see white kids. But the black audiences would respect good music by anybody; they also seemed to go for the fact we were so young.
In 1966, we did the Rolling Stones American tour. Opening for them, we got to travel on the same plane, which was a great learning experience; it was really amazing and fun.
We did several Brooklyn Fox shows, which were for Murray the K. You did three a day; three or four songs per show. There were 10 to 15 artists on each, and one featured the whole Motown revue including Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops. Strangely, the headliners were British guys, Peter and Gordon. They weren’t kids, and they weren’t doing “Hang On Sloopy,” which had been an R&B hit the year before (chuckles); the majority of the audience was black. Peter and Gordon came out in ruffled pink shirts, doing wimpy songs, and they’d get booed off the stage about 90 percent of the time (laughs)! It was a sad experience for them, but we always went over great.
The Flying Bear Medicine Show was a live album with several artists including the McCoys, right?
Yes it was, but I haven’t heard that album in so long; I don’t even remember what’s there. But when we did our Mercury records, Infinite McCoys and Human Ball, we did a live instrumental called “‘Human Ball Blues” that showed the kind of stuff the McCoys were doing live. It’s really a shame we never did a live album, because one of the reasons we got a record deal in the first place is we really were a good little band. But when we started getting pigeonholed as a “bubblegum” band we got very disenchanted, and were trying to break away from that image with those Mercury records. “Human Ball Blues” really does show what kind of band the McCoys was.
After The McCoys split, most of the band joined Johnny Winter And, and the McCoys’ name was used to promote the new combo.
It was an image thing. The McCoys were looking to play with somebody like Johnny because we wanted acceptance with that big audience, and the “bubblegum” image the McCoys had gotten had really precluded that. Johnny was looking to cross into other boundaries, but wasn’t looking to hurt himself, image-wise, so we were wondering how to complete the name of the band; it was going to be Johnny Winter and What? We finally decided to call it just Johnny Winter And, but it really was Johnny Winter and The McCoys.
How often do you hear that the live album still holds up?
You know, it drives the guitar players wild (chuckles). It seems to be the absolute favorite of a lot of guitar players and a lot of bands. But to me, it was overboard – too frenetic – and had too many edits. The live album I’m proudest of was Roadwork, with Edgar Winter’s White Trash. It had horn players, better songs, better arrangements. I’m more proud of the stuff I got to do on that album. I thought the Johnny Winter And live album was over the edge, but that’s what people love about it.
Which guitar did you use with Johnny?
It was a goldtop Les Paul that had belonged to John Sebastian. It had a Bigsby on it, and I played it with the Bigsby for a while, but eventually, I thought it would be cool to have it refinished. So my dad and I sent it back to Gibson and had it refinished in the dark red color that they used on SGs, so you can see the wood. They took the Bigsby off and put a little Custom plaque over the holes.
But from that time on, it never was as hip. It just didn’t play as good [and] didn’t stay in tune as well. I eventually traded it for another Les Paul, and the story goes that Eric Clapton bought that red Les Paul, but he felt the same way about it that did – it sure was pretty, but it didn’t come across as good as expected and he ended up giving it to George Harrison. I understand George still has it.
On the back cover of Roadwork, the photo of you shows a ES-335 in your hands.
Actually, it was a mono ES-355. The 355 was thinner and the wood 0was a little heavier, so it was harder to make it feed back, which was cooler for me, because it was easier to control the feedback. It also had a Varitone switch, which I loved using to get other sounds.
When did you get into Fenders like the Candy Apple Red Strat on the cover of your first solo album, All American Boy.
That’s a real interesting story. The store that owned it brought it by a concert for me to authenticate, which I did, and I signed it under the pickguard. Within two months, they notified me that they were going to take it to an auction, and the opening bid was $80,000.
Then, I received a picture from the catalog for that auction, and the description said that it had originally been Bob Dylan’s guitar, but my recollection is that it was Johnny Winter’s guitar. It had a stop tailpiece; somebody had done a poor job putting it on. It also had those big Precision Bass knobs, didn’t play particularly good, and didn’t particularly sound like a Strat anymore. One of the things I love about a Strat is the vibrato, and you couldn’t use that anymore. Johnny didn’t play it much, so when I was getting ready for the photo session for my album, I said, “I know where there’s a red Strat that nobody uses, sitting in a case.” The only thought about why this guitar would look cool for the cover was because it was red (laughs).
So I got it on loan from Johnny, used it for the photograph, and left it at my house for a while. It wasn’t a guitar that would inspire you to play, so I gave it back to Johnny. I never heard anything about how it came from Bob Dylan, and I never owned it. So it was surprising to see it written up with such reverence in the ’90s.
When All American Boy was released in late ’73, you signed on as guitarist for the second Edgar Winter Group album, replacing Ronnie Montrose.
I also produced their first album, They Only Come Out At Night, and got a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental for “Frankenstein.” I had been on the road for seven years with the McCoys, Johnny Winter, and White Trash. I’d gotten tired, so I stopped and began working on my solo album, and I wanted to concentrate on producing. I played pedal steel on “Round and Round” on They Only Come Out At Night.
One of the interesting things about that band involved tryouts for the guitar position. Edgar would consult Johnny and me independently when he would try each new guy. For whatever reason, Johnny didn’t think Ronnie should be the guitar player with Edgar. I never asked Johnny why he thought that, but I felt Ronnie was the best guy for the job. As Edgar tells the story, he went with my instincts because he liked him, too.
There have been some who thought there was some kind of animosity between me and Ronnie, and that somehow I was jealous of him and got him fired from the band. That’s very untrue, and as a matter of fact I was the guy who helped him get the job. Ronnie never had anything to do with the story, which was by some writer in New York who apparently had a burr up his butt about me. I don’t know where he came up with it, but it was in a big magazine.
Some of your later solo projects included players who went on to other bands, or in their own right – Neil Geraldo and Myron Grombacher, for example.
Before that, Kenny Aaronson was the bass player in the first Derringer band, and he later worked with the Rolling Stones and many other artists like Brian Setzer, Bob Dylan, and Joan Jett. Vinnie Appice was in that band, and I think he still plays with Dio; he was also with Black Sabbath.
Danny Johnson, a great guitar player, was also in my band, and a lot of people don’t know that Eddie Van Halen would come to see us play. Danny was doing that tapping technique; I can’t say he was doing it way before Eddie thought of it, but I always thought Eddie got at least some of his technique from watching our band.
There have been many times during your career where you guested on someone else’s album. Are there many recordings you’ve been heard on where some listeners might not know it’s you?
There are some obvious ones where you really can hear me. I played on a lot of Steely Dan stuff, but mostly background parts or rhythm parts where I really couldn’t be heard. There are some songs where I’m loud (chuckles), like “Show Biz Kids”’ that’s me playing those leads. I’m real proud of my work on “Chain Lightning” as well; it’s very bluesy. I also played on “Under My Wheels” for Alice Cooper – the prominent wah parts.
There was also the Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler; I played all of the guitars on that. One of my favorite solos I ever played on record is on an Air Supply song called “Makin’ Love Out of Nothin’ At All.” A lot of people don’t know that’s me.
“Show Biz Kids” has a vibe similar to “Hang On Sloopy.”
It’s certainly an infectious song. My wife, Dyan, just reminded me that I had a bit to do with “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” in that I was playing with Steely Dan and, according to Gary Katz, their producer, and Donald Fagen, I walked in late one day while they were working on the idea, and that’s my name in the title.
Earlier, you mentioned the Grammy nomination for “Frankenstein,” but you’ve won Grammys thanks to your association with Weird Al Yankovic.
I produced In 3-D, which won Best Comedy Album; “Eat It” was the big song, and “Who’s Fat” won Video of the Year. Both were big because they were Michael Jackson parodies.
MTV had a video version of Spike Jones when Weird Al showed up in the ’80s.
Definitely! My folks had a lot of Les Paul and Mary Ford records, and my uncle was a guitar player, so there were those very early influences, but strangely enough the other guy that they had a lot of albums by was Spike Jones! I loved to listen to Spike Jones when I was growing up; then came Ray Stevens in the early ’60s with “Ahab the Arab” and “Harry the Hairy Ape.” I was very conscious of those songs because of my interest in Spike Jones.
Have you ever seen the kinescopes of the Spike Jones TV show? Some of the stunts he and his band pulled were meticulous, but also very funny.
I’ve seen a couple. That was one of the things I liked about Spike Jones – he used some of the best players of his era, and so did Ray Stevens. To me, a novelty record didn’t have to be a slouch performance.
Originally, Weird Al contacted Jake Hooker, who co-wrote “I Love Rock and Roll,” about permission to do a parody called “I Love Rocky Road,” and at the time Jake was my manager. Weird Al had planned to do a one-off single and Jake wanted to know what I thought. I listened and told Jake, “This is great. This guy’s really cool!” He had another song he’d done live on the Dr. Demento show, “Another One Rides the Bus,” a parody of “Another One Bites the Dust.” We listened to a lot of songs he’d already done – “My Bologna,” for example, and it was my decision at the time to not do a single, but to speculate a bit and make an album before we had a record deal because I had that much confidence in his future success.
I became disenchanted later because I had a successful production career going, and I thought producing Grammy-winning songs by Weird Al would really enhance my career, but it almost destroyed my production career because everybody started thinking of me as a novelty producer! Because of my respect for Spike Jones and Ray Stevens records, I didn’t know some people thought novelty records were less than cool. What was “novel” about us was how hard we worked to make those records that good. Most rock artists were f**k-ups when they went into studios in those days; there’s not really any other way to put it. They abused drugs, they abused alcohol, they abused the studio time, they overran the budget. In every way they could not do what we did, which was to try and make great records. Weird Al is totally straight – very intelligent and super hard-working. We made parodies of the greatest songs of the day, and out of it I got tagged as a novelty producer.
In the end, that’s why I quit working with him. After five albums, I said, “Man, this is gonna kill me” (chuckles). And the two Grammys I won were plaques, not statues. Traditionally, the producer of a comedy album just has to stick a mic in front of somebody, but our work was obviously much more. I applied to the organization to get what I considered a real Grammy. They turned me down, so I said, “That’s it. I’m outta here.”
In 1990, you recorded a live album with Edgar Winter in Japan. How did that come about?
Jake Hooker was also involved. He thought it would be a good idea to tour. Coincidentally, my wife was in an all-girl band called Rox. They lived in Japan and had a great deal of success; they were originally from the San Francisco Bay area. Jake was looking for a record deal for us, and Dyan took me to lunch one day with a guy named Shou Kusano, who was president of a publishing company that did high-gloss rock magazines over there. In the middle of lunch, I mentioned that Edgar and I were looking for a record deal, and he said, “I’ll do it!” The next day, Jake went over and completed the deal, and the day after, we recorded the concert. So, my wife was responsible for getting that deal for us.
Early-’90s recordings for you included a couple of albums for Blues Bureau International.
Back to the Blues and Electra Blues. Both were well-received. Six years ago, when my little girl, Mallory, was about to be born, I decided to concentrate on my own career. In some ways, it was starting over, and it resulted in those two Blues Bureau records which I looked at as kind of paying dues – playing music people respected instead of just posturing for an audience. What I loved about Blues Bureau International was they like your songs to be too long; they like them to start with too many guitar solos, and they want too many guitar solos in the middle and at the end (chuckles)! That’s very respectable – it shows you’re not trying to get a hit. You’re doing music for music’s sake.
I’m going to do one more album for Blues Bureau, all covers – my favorite blues songs. This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like that. I probably won’t write anything for the record, it’ll be stuff I like to hear and play. That’s just one of six albums coming out this year.
What are the others?
Well, in 1983, our equipment truck was stolen and a lot of people in New York helped me at a benefit concert at the Palladium that became a “King Bisquit” radio concert, as well. Hall and Oates came up along with Dr. John, Edgar Winter, and Ian Hunter. That album will be out soon. I think it’s called Rick Derringer and Special Friends.
Archive Records found another live-to-radio concert I did in Boston in ’78 with a different Derringer band and different material. It’s called Archive Alive.
Then, Razor & Tie Records has acquired the rights to an album of mine called Guitars and Women, one of my Blue Sky releases produced by Todd Rundgren. It was one of my classier records, in some ways, and they’ve added two songs from an album called Face to Face.
The Blues Bureau record will be number four. The album out in Europe right now, Tend the Fire, is the first radio-friendly record I’ve done in a long time. It’s on Code Blue Records and will be coming out in the U.S. on National Records. It includes songs by some of today’s best writers and a old Lonnie Mack song I love. That’s number five.
One of my old roadies, B.B. Watson, used to sing heavy metal. I told him he sang so good that he should go to Nashville and sing country. About five years ago he did, and he had two big hits. One was “Light At The End of The Tunnel,” which was Top 10. Last year, he asked if I would be interested in starting a band and doing a country album called The Derringers. We’ve started work owith Stan Cornelius and we’ve been using some of the best players in Nashville. I think this is going to be one of the best records I’ve done in years. So that’s a total of six albums that’ll be out this year.
You’ve been cited as the owner of an original ’50s Explorer.
I don’t have mine anymore, but it had an interesting story. In the early ’70s, I contacted Gruhn [Guitars] about one, and they sent it to me on approval because they said it didn’t have the headstock they normally saw on such guitars. This one had a V-headstock.
When I got it, I flashed on a memory from when I was nine years old. My parents took me to the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, and in the showcase in the lobby were two “Guitars of the Future.” One was a Flying V with a regular arrow-shaped headstock, and the other was an Explorer with a V-shaped headstock. I remember commenting to my parents that they should have switched the headstocks. The Explorer also had a Bigsby.
When I got the guitar from Gruhn, it took me a while to realize it had two holes that were plugged where there once was a Bigsby. I did some investigating, and found out the headstock was on the original patent drawing for the Explorer, and that they made very few that way. Taking the guitar apart, I found hand-routing, and later, Gibson told me it was the only real V-headstock Explorer they’ve ever seen, which means it’s the guitar I saw in the showcase when I was nine.
I ended up not playing it much, so I sold it. I’d bought it for $1,500, then sold it in the mid ’80s for $15,000 to a collector in New Jersey.
Can you shed any light on the Explorer bass that your former bandmate Randy Jo Hobbs once owned to own?
It was a real Gibson and had the banana headstock. In the early ’70s, Randy was still playing with Johnny Winter, and I was with Edgar. I spotted the bass in a music store in New York City and told my manager, who bought the bass for Randy as a gift. Randy ended up getting rid of it, and I don’t know where it is today, but that’s the only one I’ve ever seen.
You also did some design work for a B.C. Rich model.
I helped design a guitar called the Stealth, which I played for a while. Those guitars were great, but about six years ago I thought I might still be living the legacy my dad passed on to me about glued-on necks (laughs), and I’d never had that great Strat that I’d wanted since I was a kid. So I switched to a Strat and now that’s all I play, straight into old-style amps. Right now I use Peavey Classic ’50s, and I don’t use any effects.
I’m not endorsing anything these days; I try not to endorse because I like to be free to use what I want. I have a Custom Shop Strat that’s about six years old – that’s my main instrument. And I recently got a ’60s Relic with a gold-anodized pickguard.
Do you have any other instruments in a collection?
I have one of the Stealth guitars, a ’58 Super 400, a Guitar Factory acoustic/electric that looks like a Strat with an acoustic bridge over a the soundhole. They’re neck-through to that point, so you can switch from a solidbody to an acoustic on the same instrument.
You’ve got a lot going on.
I’m excited about the blues record, but the real project is Tend the Fire, which is based on the kind of music people expect from me. And the surprise is going to be the album by the Derringers.
Do you want to hazard a guess as to what lies beyond ’98?
I don’t even want to get into it (laughs). I want to try and take Tend the Fire and the Derringers album as far as I can.
Special thanks Barney Roach. This article originally appeared in VG’s August and September ’98 issues. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
