RIP Rick Derringer

 A little slow posting this, but Rick Derringer passed away this week, May 26th.  

I was a big Derringer fan back in my early/mid teen years.  I had his first 2 albums (All American Boy and Spring Fever), as well as his 1977 Derringer Live, which remains one of my favorite "live" albums.  I picked up the album "If I weren't So Romantic I'd Shoot You" when I was in college, and in the digital age filled out with a couple of his early albums, and some of his straight blues releases.

As I noted in a 2017 blog post:  "OK, Rick Derringer has been one of my “guilty pleasures” since my mid-teens.  Nobody’s going to argue that his lyrics surpass Dylan, or his melodies beat the Beatles.  But you know what?  Sometimes it is enough to just Rock And Roll.  And Derringer can certainly rock.  Good time, 70’s vintage rock.  I’ll admit it, at 18 years old, I owned more Derringer albums than I did Beatles and Stones combined.  And, I think he’s one of the more underrated guitar players of the era. "

I originally loved Derringer for those mid-70's straight ahead rock and roll records, built around excellent guitar playing.  But he has a huge body of work, including producing and session work.  I particularly enjoy his blues records from later on (check out Three Kings).

Sorry to see another blast from my past has now passed....