RICK DERRINGER
August 5, 1947 – May 26, 2025
The guitarist died at 77 as this issue went to press. Next month we will present a full tribute with a rare interview he gave just last year. Dave Ling offers some highlights of his life and times.
He was the talent of a generation, just 17 years old when his band The McCoys topped the US singles chart with Hang On Sloopy, their cover of a past hit for the R&B group The Vibrations, in the summer of 1965.
The first of seven hit singles, Hang On Sloopy was the start of it all for The McCoys and a launch pad for guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer Rick Derringer, a fiercely ambitious and prodigiously gifted entertainer who would go on to have a career that lasted for six decades.
Back in ’65, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones had taken the United States by the scruff of the neck as part of the so-called British Invasion and were giving it a damned good shake. Though less celebrated, from our side of the Atlantic at least, The McCoys were at the centre of it all.