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:
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