Rick Derringer 1947 -2025

Rick Derringer 1947 - 2025

This just in from Hear Rock City

and the tributes come . . . . 

Legendary rock guitarist and producer Rick Derringer has died, aged 77.

“They will always see me as the guy on the cover of All American Boy and it’ll never enter their mind that blues really was the music I grew up listening to and loving, and in some ways the success through rock corralled me into being a rock guy for so long.”

“For me, music comes in two varieties, It’s either good music, or it’s bad music, and any music that’s good in general I’ve always liked. So, it’s hard for me to do just a basic kind of in one little teensy slice of the pie kind of thing. So, when I go in there and change a lyric like in ‘Still Alive and Well,’ I say, ‘Jesus Christ has risen up to heaven from the grave, and he’s still alive and well.’”

What are the boundaries? ‘If 6 Was 9’ [by Hendrix] – to me that is blues, too. The song ‘Sometimes,’ the second one on the album, has blues roots and even though it’s kind of rock; it’s still blues, and the same thing with a smooth song like ‘I Still Love You.’ That’s still, to me, real good blues.”

His contributions to the world’s encyclopedia of musical history spans not just history but genres. “I play biker bars and places where pretty rough characters hang out, certainly ungodly, and what they advised me was, ‘Wow, you’ve been given an opportunity to go out there and get in the inside in the belly of the beast, so to speak.’”

By Don Wilcock / American Blues Scene

this nice piece from 

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