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Rick Derringer’s recollections of his infamous red Les Paul
A couple of months back at Summer NAMM in Nashville we got a surprise guest to the booth, Rick Derringer. The rocker best known for "Hang on Sloopy," and "Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo" dropped by to check out some of our pedals. Hearing him play, I was reminded of why he has appeared on albums by everyone from Edgar Winter to Steely Dan. Being the guitar geek that I am, I had to ask him about his old Les Paul that was reported to have ended up in George Harrison's hands. I better start further back. In the early 60's, Rick bought a '57 gold top Les Paul that he loved but the gold paint was flaking off, and it was not yet cool to have a beat up guitar. He took the guitar to the Gibson plant which was then located in Kalamazoo to have it refinished. After choosing cherry red as the new color for his Paul, he had them also remove the Bigsby vibrato, and install a stop tail piece while they had it under the knife so to speak. After getting the guitar back, Derringer felt like it had lost some of its magic, and sold the guitar at the Dan Armstrong guitar shop in New York City. Now comes the interesting part. Eric Clapton, while on tour with Cream, buys the guitar, and then proceeds to gift it to Beatle George. Harrison then has Clapton Guest on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" playing the red Les Paul, and George nicknames the guitar Lucy. Now we have a guitar with 3 very famous guitar players having owned it. Now here is something interesting that Derringer said at the end of telling the story about the guitar. He indicated that he did not remember the guitar looking like it did in photos that are available of George playing it. To be more specific, he did not remember the off-set seam of the maple top that is clearly visible in all photos of Harrison playing the guitar. So, is it the same guitar? Did Clapton buy more than one red Les Paul? Ah, life is a mystery.
