Rick Derringer

Richard Dean Zehringer (August 5, 1947 – May 26, 2025), known professionally as Rick Derringer, was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He gained success in the 1960s with his band, the McCoys. Their debut single, "Hang On Sloopy", became a number-one hit in 1965 and is regarded as a classic track from the garage rock era. The McCoys had seven songs chart in the top 100, including covers of "Fever" and "Come On, Let's Go". After releasing All American Boy, Derringer established a career as a solo artist.

In 1973, Derringer found further success with his song "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo". He worked extensively with brothers Edgar and Johnny Winter, playing lead and rhythm guitar in their bands and producing all of their gold and platinum records, including Edgar Winter's hits "Frankenstein" and "Free Ride" (both in 1973). He collaborated with Steely Dan, Cyndi Lauper, and "Weird Al" Yankovic, producing Yankovic's Grammy Award-winning songs "Eat It" (1984) and "Fat" (1988). He produced the World Wrestling Federation's album The Wrestling Album (1985) and its follow-up, Piledriver: The Wrestling Album II (1987). Those albums featured Hulk Hogan's entrance song, "Real American," initially the theme song of the tag team U.S. Express; and the Demolition tag team's theme, "Demolition." Derringer produced three songs on the soundtrack of the 1984 Tom Hanks film Bachelor Party.

Life and career

Early life and 1960s

Derringer was born in Celina, Ohio, on August 5, 1947, and grew up in Fort Recovery, Ohio. He was the son of John Otto Zehringer and Janice Lavine (Thornburg) Zehringer. His father was a section foreman on the Nickel Plate Railroad. According to Derringer, aside from his parents' extensive record collection, his first major influence was his uncle Jim Thornburg, who was a popular guitarist and singer in Ohio. Derringer recalled hearing him play guitar in the kitchen of his parents' home and knowing immediately that he wanted to learn the instrument. He was eight years old at the time, and his parents gave him his first electric guitar for his ninth birthday. Soon after, he and his brother Randy began playing music together, inspired by the "British invasion" of the Beatles and other UK bands in the early 1960s. After he finished the eighth grade, the family moved to Union City, Indiana, where Derringer formed a band he called the McCoys. He renamed the band the Rick Z Combo and then Rick and the Raiders before reverting to the original name.

In the summer of 1965, before Derringer turned 18, the McCoys were hired to back a New York-based band called the Strangeloves in concert. The Strangeloves, record producers from New York City, were looking for a band to record the song "My Girl Sloopy", written by Wes Farrell and Bert Berns, and chose the McCoys. Derringer persuaded the producers to change the title to "Hang On Sloopy". The Strangeloves recorded the guitar and instrumental parts and the McCoys were brought into the studio to sing on the recording, which was released under their name in 1965 and reached number one on the Hot 100. Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" fell from number one to number two; The Beatles' "Yesterday" zoomed from number 45 to number three. "Hang On Sloopy" became an anthem for Derringer's home state of Ohio, especially at Ohio State Buckeyes football games, where fans chant "O-H-I-O" during the song's chorus. It is also a staple at Cleveland Guardians home games at Progressive Field and plays at the end of every tour at Ohio Caverns.

Along with musicians, Elliott Randall, Marty Kupersmith, Harvey Brooks, Paul Harris, and Billy Williams, Derringer played on Eric Mercury's 1969 Electric Black Man album.

1970s

Derringer and the McCoys joined Johnny Winter in a group called "Johnny Winter And", with the "And" referring to the McCoys. Derringer later became part of Edgar Winter's White Trash and the Edgar Winter Group. After the McCoys split up, Derringer played guitar on albums by, among others, Steely Dan, Alice Cooper, Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand.

In 1973, Derringer released his first solo album, All American Boy, which featured his hit song "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo". The song had already appeared on the albums Johnny Winter And (1970) and Roadwork (1972). Derringer's version reached the Top 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming his highest-charting single, but despite the single's success the album, All American Boy, was not commercially successful. One critic called it a "sadly neglected album of great merit".

Derringer's later albums, both solo and with his band Derringer, included 1977's Sweet Evil, co-written with Cynthia Weil and Rolling Thunder Revue author Larry Sloman. He released the critically acclaimed album Guitars and Women in 1979, which was re-released with liner notes by Razor & Tie in 1998. He played guitar on two Steely Dan tracks, "Show Biz Kids" on Countdown to Ecstasy (1973) and "Chain Lightning" on Katy Lied (1975), and is credited with having helped Donald Fagen to secure a record deal in 1972. Derringer collaborated with his neighbor Todd Rundgren, playing on four of Rundgren's solo albums. He was a regular in Andy Warhol's circle and frequently visited Warhol's studio, The Factory.

1980s and 1990s

Derringer played guitar on "My Rival" from Steely Dan's Gaucho (1980) and contributed to Fagen's first solo album, The Nightfly (1982). In 1983, he played guitar on two hit power ballads written and produced by Jim Steinman: Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" and Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart". Derringer said his guitar solo in "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" was his favorite of all the solos he had recorded. That year, he recorded guitar parts for Meat Loaf's poorly received album Midnight at the Lost and Found. Both "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" were originally offered to Meat Loaf by Steinman for that album, but Meat Loaf's record company refused to pay Steinman for the compositions.

In 1983, Derringer wrote "Shake Me" for his Good Dirty Fun solo album, accompanied by a video produced by Jake Hooker, the husband of Lorna Luft. Singer Lourett Russell Grant appeared in the video alongside Derringer. In 1984, Derringer played guitar on Barbra Streisand's cover of Steinman's "Left in the Dark", released as the lead single from her album Emotion. In 1985, Derringer's friendship with Cyndi Lauper led him and Steinman to collaborate again, with Derringer producing The Wrestling Album (1985) for the World Wrestling Federation, consisting mostly of wrestlers' theme songs. He wrote several songs for the album, including "Real American", co-written with Bernard Kenny. The song was originally used as the theme song for U.S. Express (Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda), but became Hulk Hogan's theme song after Windham left the World Wrestling Federation in 1985. The song was used by US President Barack Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner, where he played it while unveiling his birth certificate. It was used as a campaign song by Hillary Clinton, as a victory song by Newt Gingrich, and in four videos during the campaign of Donald Trump.

In 1986, Derringer worked with Meat Loaf again on Blind Before I Stop, co-writing the song "Masculine". He played guitar on two songs on Cyndi Lauper's album True Colors, "Calm Inside the Storm" and "The Faraway Nearby". From 1986 to 1992, he served as a guitarist on Lauper's tours and commented that Lauper was "better live" than Barbra Streisand. He played with Lauper again on her third album, A Night to Remember, which was released in 1989.

In 1987, Meat Loaf appeared on Way Off Broadway, a nationally distributed cable TV show with Derringer as the music director. The show was hosted by Joy Behar. Other guests on the show included Larry Carlton, Robbie Dupree, and Edgar Winter. Derringer returned to the World Wrestling Federation in 1987 to produce a second music album, Piledriver: The Wrestling Album II. He co-wrote the theme song for Demolition and recorded a new version of "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" as a duet with Gene Okerlund.

In the 1980s, he produced the Kodomo Band and toured in Asia, including with Edgar Winter, during the 1990 White Light tour, and worked for several New York City-based jingle houses. Derringer produced "Weird Al" Yankovic's debut album, "Weird Al" Yankovic (1983). Between 1983 and 1989, he produced six Yankovic albums, for which he received his only Grammy Award. Yankovic expressed openness to the idea of working with Derringer again.

In 1997, Derringer became an Evangelical Christian. Thereafter, he consistently aligned himself with conservative causes in the United States. He described himself as a "Jesus freak" and recorded albums of Christian songs with his third wife, Jenda.

2000s and 2010s

In 2001, Derringer, Tim Bogert, and Carmine Appice released the album Derringer, Bogert & Appice (DBA): Doin' Business as... on the German record label Steamhammer Records. Derringer had previously worked with Appice on an album, Party Tested by DNA (Derringer'n'Appice), and it was re-released in 2011.