RICK DERRINGER: LITTLE MAN WITH A BIG GUN

Well, here we are in the middle of the first set on Friday night at the Shaboo Inn in captivating Willimantic, Conn.

The Shaboo is a rather large club, holds about a thou for the weekend rich kid college rush, used to be a mill; all kinds of pipes running overhead and support beams strategically located so that once you’re plastered, you should walk into one every few minutes. The lighting is mainly red bulbs screwed into the ceiling and the general atmosphere at the Shaboo is not unlike an early 1969 palace of rock as seen on re-runs of The Name of the Game whenever Tony Franciosa was host.

Actually, I’m feeling pretty much like Jeff Dillon on this particular junket—I ‘keep waiting for Susan Saint James to show up disguised as a waitress, though the standard prescribed doses of gin and tonic have left me a bit uncertain as to whether good ol’ Peg Maxwell will be fat or thin on this particular episode. Maybe Robert Stack’ll appear and smile (violating once again the secret pact he made with his face during The Untouchables) to let me know that Glenn Howard has assigned him here too because of some international dope ring based right here in the heart of grey and white Bicentennial country, thereby making this the first official merger of Crime and People magazines.

Tonight’s installment is entitled simply “All American Boy and His New Band.” Up on the stage is all the information one needs to know about how a four man rock ‘n’ roll band should operate. Moving from right to left, we have: Rick Derringer, former McCoys leader; one time co-conspirator in Johnny Winter And, part-time glitter rock star with the Edgar Winter Group who now, after twelve years in the tire, has decided to get his own frying pan; Vinny Appice, not only an incredibly hard working drummer and brother of the immortal Carmen, but a bona fide teenager to boot; Kenny Aaronson, skillful bass player with a resume that includes Dust, Stories and the Leslie West Band, able to spot a deelish cheese blintz from miles away; and on the far left, Danny Johnson, second lead guitar, who’s got every move of every ’60s British lead guitarist (pius a few of his own) wrapped up in his skinny frame, with a Les Paul that looks out at the audience and says, “Hi! I’m gonna rip your ears off before the night is over.”

This, then, is Derringer; a twin guitar, bass and drums band whose sole purpose on earth is to rock ‘n’ roll the night away for as many nights as the world wishes them to do so. Tonight is the second night of their three-night engager ment at the Shaboo, the first of a month long series of club dates, their first tour as a band. Last night was pretty much a dress rehearsal for today, Friday. There’s no album yet (though Derringer will be out by the time you read this) and it’s the first tour. Your basic baptism rites.

The set has begun with “Still Alive and Well,” which serves both to break the ice since most folks know the song as the title track that Rick wrote for Johnny Winter’s comeback album a few years ago, and to give a clear view of this band’s functions. Quite simply, they do it, without pretense or visual aids.

The band has run through several tunes from Derringer, the Who-ish “Let Me In,” the taut and tense “Loosen Up Your Grip,” and “Teenage Love Affair,” from the All American Boy album, which takes on a whole new meaning with this band, full of good natured fire and energy. We’re now at the middle, where we entered on line one. The band has just finished “Envy,” featuring a crisp little drum solo intro and then Kenny’s spectacular bass solo, and it’s Danny’s spot as he revs up for his lead vocal on his song “Sailor.” He steps to the middle of the stage, the beam of light hits him, and suddenly he’s off on another planet. His eyes become glazed, his motions all jagged and choppy as he gives a three minute lesson in “what to do with your Les Paul after you’ve learned to play everything there is to play.”

The drama is now unfolding. “Sailor” ends and it’s clearly up to Rick, the old vet, to come through in the clutch since he has not had his solo spot. The band erupts into “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hootchie Coo,” Rick takes a splendid solo and then, on the last chorus, everything stops on the last “lawdy mama,” and it’s make it or break it time. Rick answers his voice with his guitar until the “lawdy mamas” are at breakneck speed. He shouts and the guitar rings with the response. He zooms off into some riffing that leaves everyone with flies ready to jump into open mouths. Everyone is transfixed anyway, but Rick takes it a step further; he starts a reggaeish melody on his axe and soon he’s off on a sitar imitation that gets faster and more complex as he progresses and the rest of the band, along with the audience, just gazes in amazement.

It’s a supreme moment. The audience jumps to its feet as the group swings into the final number, “Beyond the Universe," and that it is , with a spiritual nod to Hendrix in the construction of the song and Danny and Rick filling all available space with the twin leads, a regular technological Wild Kingdom of mating calls of the six string electrics. I expect the roof to cave in any second—it’d be a great way to go.

Rick Derringer talks about the group . nth a casualness and an authority that only a man with as much experience as he has in this crazy business could. “I never really made a decision to get into the music business,” he admits. “The McCoys were just a local band until the Strangeloves came to town . We backed them up, they asked us if we wanted to record a song that they were doing in their set and suddenly we were in New York, recording ‘Hang On Sloopy.’ It was like a blur—we were out on the road, playing all over the country, making records. Then the records stopped selling and we were struggling. When I got to Johnny Winter it was the first time that I felt I was making any kind of decision. I decided that I wanted to be in a situation where there were audiences and respect and a regular paycheck and you could make records that people would buy—all the things that the McCoys worried about all the time. Johnny offered all of those things.

“Atthe same time, I began to get into the producing end of making records. We had produced the last two McCoys albums ourselves and I helped Johnny with the Johnny Winter And albums because he’d had problems communicating with his former producers. White Trash was my first real production thing;

I was learning a lot while I was doing it . It gave me the confidence, to know that I could quit playing if I wanted to and still have a livelihood.

“I really didn’t relish the thought of going out and finding people or being a leader or starting out all over again. So I asked Edgar [Winter] if I could join his band. We did Shock Treatment, then a tour, then the Edgar Winter Group with Rick Derringer album, then another tour and during that second tour, I started feeling that the pressures of being on the road and the obligations of being in a band were becoming equal to the pressures of having your own band and having those responsibilities for yourself on the road. So rather than make a big thing out-of it and tell the press, ‘Well, we’ve SPLIT UP!,’ we decided to split up informally. I don’t know if we’ll ever get back together again, but it’s not a closed door for sure.

TURN TO RAGE 69.

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“Still, knowing what I was feeling about band makeup and still liking to play on the road, I finally decided to put my own band together. I wanted people who were really into their one instrument , who had a style and who respected their ability to play that instrument. I figured if I could find people like that, then all of our styles, ideally, would come together as one and we’d sound like a band in the studiaand onstage. And I think I did, with Danny, Kenny and Vinny.

“These club dates are a gas and I think they’re important for us. It’s more real than just getting dumped on a stage and being told ‘Here’s your audience.’ Even if it works, you don’t feel like you belong there and that it is your audience. I’ve been in bands where suddenly you’re up in front of 30,000 people and you don’t feel you deserve to be there.”

Derringer certainly will be on those big stages, and when you see them, you’ll know that they deserve to be there. The band’s music is so natural and so honest that it’s just about irresistable. As Rick says, they are what they are, and what they are is the first rock ‘n’ roll band in a long time to sound, look and feel like a rock‘n’roll band. Sloopy, hang on. Yeah.