Rick Derringer

Rick Derringer is one of those guitarists who somehow never quite got the household-name treatment he deserved, and that's always baffled me. The guy co-wrote and performed "Hang On Sloopy" with the McCoys when he was barely eighteen years old — a number-one hit in 1965 that became Ohio's official state rock song, which is honestly a wild legacy to carry around. Then he reinvented himself in the early seventies with "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo," this gloriously sleazy hard-rock anthem that should have made him a superstar all over again. He also produced and played alongside Johnny Winter and Edgar Winter for years, which tells you the serious players always knew exactly how good he was. Born in Celina, Ohio, this small-town kid carved out a career spanning decades as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter — a real craftsman who let the music do the talking.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Rick Derringer

Name (Japanese)

リック・デリンジャー

Reading

りっく・でりんじゃー

Born

August 5, 1947 – May 26, 2025

Origin

Celina, Ohio, United States

Occupation

guitarist / singer / composer / rock musician / musician

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Leo / Boar

• Official sitehttps://www.rickderringer.com
• Xhttps://x.com/rickderringer
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick%20Derringer
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%83%BB%E3%83%87%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A3%E3%83%BC
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2142941

Tags

• Ohio
• guitarist
• singer
• composer

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.