That time Rick Derringer told me that one of the favourite solos he ever played was for Air Supply

01a035967fae660819c392441af7e28c

By Steve Newton

Back in the seventies, Rick Derringer was one of my top rock heroes. I mean, come on, the guy wrote “Still Alive and Well”. He played on 1971’s Johnny Winter And Live.  He produced the Edgar Winter Group’s They Only Come Out at Night (my intro to Ronnie Montrose) in ’72. He played the wicked slide on Steely Dan’s “Showbiz Kids” in ’73. And in ’76 he started up the band Derringer, which was awesome in every way.

I didn’t actually get the opportunity to interview Derringer until much later, in July of ’99, when he came to Vancouver for a show at the Yale blues bar. During our chat I asked him what session work he was most proud of, and was somewhat taken aback when he claimed that one of the favourite guitar solos he ever recorded was the one on Air Supply’s super sappy “Making Love Out of Nothing At All”.

When I laughed out loud and told him that his rock fans might not want to know that, he straightened me out with that old “there’s two kinds of music” rule.

Have a listen:

 

To hear my full 15-minute interview with Rick Derringer, subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can also hear my interviews with such guitar greats as:

Robin Trower, 1990
Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, 1994
Mick Ronson, 1988
Buck Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult, 1997
Michael Schenker, 1992
Guthrie Govan of the Aristocrats, 2015
Carlos Santana, 2001
Walter Trout, 2003
Mark Farner of Grand Funk, 1991
Jennifer Batten, 2002
Leo Kottke, 2002
Link Wray, 1997
Buddy Guy, 1991
Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1986
Rik Emmett of Triumph, 1985
Sonny Landreth, 2016
Tosin Abasi of Animals as Leaders, 2016
Jeff Beck, 2001
Albert King, 1990
Johnny Ramone of the Ramones, 1992
Peter Frampton, 1987
Otis Rush, 1997
Leslie West of Mountain, 2002
Uli Jon Roth, 2016
Poison Ivy of the Cramps, 1990
Stevie Ray Vaughan, 1985
Malcolm Young of AC/DC, 1983
Steve Clark of Def Leppard, 1988
Roy Buchanan, 1986
Gary Moore, 1984
Ronnie Montrose, 1994
Danny Gatton, 1993
Alex Lifeson of Rush, 1992
J.J. Cale, 1990
Yngwie Malmsteen, 2014
Allan Holdsworth, 1983
Kim Mitchell, 1984
Warren Haynes of Allman Brothers, 1994
Derek Trucks, 1998
Susan Tedeschi, 1998
Joe Satriani, 2018
B.B. King, 1984
Albert Collins, 1985
Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, 1984
Dick Dale, 2000
Dickey Betts, 2001
…with hundreds more to come

 

 

Leave a Reply