Rick Derringer, born Richard Dean Zehringer on August 5, 1947, in Fort Recovery, Ohio, began performing as a teenager and quickly established himself as a formidable talent on guitar. The McCoys was a pop group started in Union City, Indiana in 1962, with original members guitarist Rick Derringer, his brother Randy on drums, and bassist Dennis Kelly, in a lineup first called "Rick and the Raiders." When Dennis Kelly left for college, the Zehringers were joined by bassist Randy Hobbs, saxophonist Sean Michaels, and keyboardist Ronnie Brandon, and this lineup took the name The McCoys. The group's raw, energetic garage rock sound made them one of the most promising young acts to emerge from the Midwest in the mid-1960s.
The band's breakthrough came almost immediately. In the summer of 1965, The McCoys achieved their first success with "Hang On Sloopy," a bubblegum anthem that displaced The Beatles' "Yesterday" at the top of the charts. The band's next single, 1965's "Fever," peaked at Number Seven, and in 1966, their cover of Ritchie Valens' "Come On, Let's Go" peaked at Number 22, though it would be the last time the McCoys made the Top 40. After the band's run ended in the late 1960s, Derringer's career took a pivotal turn when he joined blues guitarist Johnny Winter's band. In 1970, Johnny Winter was looking for a new backing band, and the Zehringer brothers, now billing themselves as Rick Derringer and Randy Z, signed on along with former McCoys bassist Randy Jo Hobbs, and the group settled on the name Johnny Winter And. It was during this period that Derringer wrote what would become his signature song. "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" was written by Derringer and first recorded in 1970 by Johnny Winter and his band Johnny Winter And, before Derringer recorded a solo version in 1973 that became his only top 40 chart hit as a solo artist in the US. That song appeared on his debut solo studio album, All American Boy, released in October 1973 by Blue Sky Records. Derringer's career arc after this breakthrough was defined by remarkable versatility rather than chasing further chart hits. Though he would never make another album as successful as All American Boy, he toured and recorded as often as he pleased, lending guitar work to recordings by Johnny Winter, Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren, Barbra Streisand, and Bette Midler, and producing a handful of hits for "Weird Al" Yankovic. In 1976, Rick created The Derringer Band and during the latter half of the seventies, released four albums: "Derringer," "Sweet Evil," "If I Weren't So Romantic I'd Shoot You," and "Face To Face." He also became closely associated with pop culture beyond rock radio, as he wrote "Real American," Hulk Hogan's entrance theme song in the WWE, which became an instant hit and remained in use by wrestlers for years afterward. His session and production work touched an enormous range of artists, and in the mid-1980s Derringer discovered parody artist Weird Al Yankovic, producing music for his Grammy-winning albums, including the #12 hit "Eat It." In later decades, Derringer continued to tour and record steadily rather than fade from the stage. With many changes in his personal life, Rick launched a Gospel career with the release of "Aiming 4 Heaven" in the fall of 2008, before returning to his rock roots in May 2009 with the album "Knighted by the Blues" and its single "Sometimes." 2010 and 2011 saw Rick touring with Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band alongside his longtime friend and partner Edgar Winter , and in 2014, Peter Frampton staged a tour called Peter Frampton's Guitar Circus, featuring a number of his favorite players, with Derringer part of the lineup alongside Roger McGuinn of the Byrds and Leslie West of Mountain. Derringer passed away on May 26, 2025, at age 77, closing out a professional career that spanned six decades and left an indelible mark on classic rock, blues rock, and American guitar tradition, with "Hang On Sloopy" and "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" remaining touchstones of the era.
This archive is proud to preserve a piece of that long touring legacy. Wayne Dennon photographed Rick Derringer at three shows between 2006 and 2007, a period when Derringer was touring steadily behind albums like "Rockin' American," and his work resulted in 82 photographs that remain part of this collection. Those images have since been viewed by archive visitors 62,303 times, a testament to the enduring appeal of a guitarist whose career bridged garage rock, blues, arena rock, and beyond.
