Yeah, I was there that night and you might hear me playing some music in the background. Is it you who plays on the live bootleg (“Bleeding Heart” or “Woke Up This Morning and Found Myself Dead”) with both Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison? One night, my guitar was stolen from the dressing room and Jimi said: “Why don’t you just use of couple of my guitars?” He loaned me his guitars, so that I could continue playing for the rest of the night. Jimi Hendrix would come down and play often. Because of that, we had the opportunity to jam with many-many great rock ‘n’ roll players there and one of them was Jimi Hendrix. My band, The McCoys were called the house band at The Scene, which means that we played there regularly. You jammed a lot of times with Jimi Hendrix at The Scene Club in New York. Yeah, I played that long guitar solo on “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” for many-many years and Eddie heard me playing many times (laughs). Van Halen covered “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” before they release their debut album! So, Eddie may heard us playing that, too. So, my idea was that Eddie copied a lot of that tapping technique from Danny Johnson, who was in my band and obviously “You Really Got Me” was one of our encore songs for a long time. Eddie Van Halen said he used to come here and watch Danny Johnson and I, playing in the Derringer band, before they were even successful. Johnson was the first guy I ever saw doing that tapping the neck technique. My band called Derringer had a player called Danny Johnson. Is it frustrating that many people don’t know that you did it first? Some people said that there were maybe 100.000 people and they were great-great shows.Įddie Van Halen said that you copied his “Eruption” solo when in fact he did copy your “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” solo from “Derringer Live” album (1977) where you are also playing “You Really Got Me (The Kinks). There was a huge audience, the stadium was full of people. So, the Day on the Green concerts were the last two concerts that they ever played in the United States and they were really great concerts. After that, when they came back to England, they had health issues, John Bonham died and they pretty much stopped playing concerts for a long time. They were the last two concerts that Led Zeppelin ever played in the United States. What memories do you have of these concerts? You opened for Led Zeppelin on Day on the Green in Oakland Ca on 23-24 July 1977. To me, it’s one of the best live albums ever recorded. That band that we played on the road with: Bobby Ramirez on drums, Randy Jo Hobbs on bass, Jerry LaCroix singing and Jon Smith playing saxophone, it was just a great-great band. I love the “Roadwork” album, in particular. I love your playing on “Tobacco Road” from Edgar Winter’s White Trash’s “Roadwork” (1972) live album! Are you proud of this version? So, we turned out to be very right and it turned out to be #1. They said it wouldn’t fit on that record, but producer Bill Szymczyk (ed: The Eagles) and I, both realized that it was probably the best song of the album. The record company didn’t have good ideas. I was the producer of it (ed: on Edgar Winter’s “They Only Came Out at Night” album -1972). “Frankenstein” was a really great record to record. They thought: “If Johnny Winter is considered great, that guy, Rick Derringer, must be pretty good too”.ĭid you have trouble editing Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein” (1972) song? They saw that I was an equal with Johnny Winter. Johnny Winter was a very respected blues guitarist and when I played with The McCoys, he really helped me with the audiences. What was so special about playing alongside Johnny Winter? I had already recorded “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” in two different albums: with Johnny Winter (ed: on “Johnny Winter And” -1970) and with Edgar Winter on White Trash’s “Roadwork” (1972), which is a live album and I played it in many live concerts, so I had a good idea that “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” was going to be very successful. I’m now professional since 1965 and I don’t know if that would have been possible, if it weren’t not for “Hang On Sloopy”.ĭid you expect the success of “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” from your “All American Boy” (1973) solo album? Yes, it was #1, while “Yesterday” by The Beatles was #2. We invite people to be part of our family.ĭid “Hang On Sloopy” by The McCoys (1965) change your life? It reached #1 on The Billboard Charts! Also, we have live videos of our family and pets. All brand new songs and videos to go along with them. I have a lot of music there that nobody has heard before. Could you please give us some information about this? We ’ll get it running in the United States and we are working on a brand new album. Right now, we are working on Rick Derringer Radio.
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