Rick Derringer (born Ricky Dean Zehringer; August 5, 1947) is an American guitarist, vocalist, producer and songwriter. He came to prominence in the 1960s as founding member of his band, The McCoys. At that time, they were taken to New York City to record what became the number one hit song “Hang On Sloopy”. The McCoys then had seven songs that charted in the top 100, including versions of “Fever” and “Come On Let’s Go”.
In March 1974, Derringer had another major hit with his own song, “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo”. He has worked extensively with the brothers Edgar and Johnny Winter, playing lead guitar in their bands, and also producing all of their gold and platinum disc recordings. He has worked with Steely Dan, Cyndi Lauper and “Weird Al” Yankovic, producing Yankovic’s Grammy Award-winning songs “Eat It” and “Fat”. “Eat It” included Derringer’s guitar solo, which emulated Eddie Van Halen’s solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”. The work he did with Yankovic convinced Vince McMahon, the president of the World Wrestling Federation, that Derringer should be the producer of The Wrestling Album (1985) and then the follow-up, Piledriver: The Wrestling Album II (1987). The albums included the entrance song for Hulk Hogan, “Real American”, and the Demolition tag team, “Demolition”.