Louder AAA
Rick Derringer was the talent of a generation, just 17 years old when his band The McCoys topped the US singles chart with Hang On Sloopy, their cover of a past hit for the R&B group The Vibrations, in the summer of 1965.
The first of seven hit singles, Hang On Sloopy was the start of it all for The McCoys and a launch pad for guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer Rick Derringer, a fiercely ambitious and prodigiously gifted entertainer who would go on to have a career that lasted for six decades.
Back in ’65, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones had taken the United States by the scruff of the neck as part of the so-called British Invasion and were giving it a damned good shake. Though less celebrated, from our side of the Atlantic at least, The McCoys were at the centre of it all.
“[As part of the band] I opened for the Rolling Stones on their very first American tour, and, of course, we received the same adulation as the Stones,” Derringer told Guitar Player in 2024. “People ask me: ‘Did you see what it was like to be a Beatle?’ Well, I already knew what it was like. I had the number-one record in the world while Yesterday by The Beatles was number two. Did I know what it was like to be The Beatles? I was The Beatles in some form. I grew up like that.”
Derringer was born Richard Dean Zehringer in Celina, Ohio, and grew up in nearby Fort Recovery. Having taken an interest in the record collection of his parents, he received his first electric guitar as a present for his ninth birthday. After he moved to New York in his late teens, The McCoys were formed in 1962 and lasted for four tumultuous years. Afterwards, Derringer teamed up with both Johnny and Edgar Winter. He was hugely involved in two Edgar Winter radio staples, being the producer of Free Ride and the colourful instrumental Frankenstein (which had Ronnie Montrose on guitar).
Derringer’s burgeoning solo career began in 1973 with his Bill Szymczyk-produced album All American Boy. Its opening number, Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo, became Derringer’s calling card. The song had been recorded twice previously (by both of the Winter Brothers), but it found extra resonance in the hands of its writer, and fell just short of the US Top 20. “The rock was me and ‘hoochie koo’ was Johnny [Winter],” Derringer explained years later.
Derringer went on to release more than a dozen solo albums, including the brilliantly titled If I Weren’t So Romantic, I’d Shoot You in 1978, and another three with the band Derringer. Working in many musical genres, he performed on tracks and albums by Alice Cooper (Killer), Todd Rundgren (Something/Anything?), Steely Dan (Gaucho, Countdown To Ecstasy), Kiss (Lick It Up), Donald Fagen (The Nightfly), Joe Bonamassa (A New Day Yesterday), Air Supply (Making Love Out Of Nothing At All), Meat Loaf (Midnight At The Lost And Found), Bonnie Tyler (Total Eclipse Of The Heart), Jon Anderson, Neil Sedaka, Barbra Streisand, Cyndi Lauper and many more, as well as producing artists including both Winter brothers and US metallers Madam X.
During the 80s Derringer became a crucial part of the success of comedy parody artist ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, and won a Grammy for Eat It, their humorous take on Michael Jackson’s Beat It, and Derringer had a tie-in with the world of wrestling thanks to his association with Hulk Hogan.
In later years he undertook three world tours with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band and was also involved with Peter Frampton’s Guitar Circus. However, the focus remained on his own music and that of his wife of 28 years, Jenda Derringer, with whom he also recorded. Stylistically, they tackled anything from Christian music (Rick described himself as a “Jesus freak” after becoming an Evangelical Christian in 1997) to the blues.
Rick passed away peacefully on May 26, 2025, in his sleep in Ormond Beach, Florida, with Jenda and Wilson at his side, following “a medical episode". The precise cause of death has not been publicly shared, but Rick had been battling a heart condition and had reportedly undergone a triple bypass two months earlier.
No doubt about it, Derringer was in a happy place, content in his faith and thrilled by the ability to continue playing music – even in the most secular of environments.
“Now people come up to me in a bar or at a biker festival not to tell me that I’m great, but that my music is helping save their lives, helping them in the Lord, and helping them end their vices. That makes me feel good!!” he said in a 2001 interview. And in 2023, Derringer quipped: “I’m a double agent for the Lord, working behind enemy lines.”
However one chooses to look at it, Rick Derringer, a wonderful musical talent, was blessed. He will remain much missed.
