Weird Al's Keyboardist-1979-1989?

Rammer124 · Post by **Rammer124** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 8:20 pm

Ive managed to collect, off of MANY hours of searching, the name of Al's original guitarist. Rick Derringer. I was wondering, who am I seeing in videos such as Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies playing keyboards? The same person is also an ice cream jerker in I Love Rocky Road(!).

Who, danget? WHO?!?

Post by **Keir** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 8:57 pm

Um, I'm pretty sure that Al's original guitarist was in fact Jim West. Rick was his producer and played some guitar on the first album, as well as the solo on Eat It. When he first formed a band and started touring it was the same lineup we know today, minus Ruben of course. As for your question I'm afraid I don't know.

Rammer124 · Post by **Rammer124** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:01 pm

I just looked up rick on wikipedia, said he played guitar and mandolin for al in the early 80s. That may have only been "'Weird Al' Yankovic" though... Ill find the answer someday, i know for sure.

Post by **scottidog** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:29 pm

Keir @ Aug 13 2007, 11:57 AM wrote: Um, I'm pretty sure that Al's original guitarist was in fact Jim West.

Actually, there was another musician. Let me think.... for one person, Jon's brother "Bobcat" played in the early days.

From the player's page at The Mothership:

Richard Bennett - bass, guitar, banjo & ukelele
Performed on most of the 1981 demos, and on "WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC. Al was lucky to nab him from his day-gig as Neil Diamond's lead guitarist.

And it seems like there was another guy in the SLO days.

Ive managed to collect, off of MANY hours of searching, the name of Al's original guitarist. Rick Derringer.

Rick Derringer produced some of the early albums, and played on them as well. But he wasn't "Al's original guitarist." And contrary to Mr. Derringer's recollection, he didn't "discover" Al.

In the mid-80's, Derringer discovered Weird Al Yancovic, producing music for Grammy-winning albums and videos. Derringer's productions of the Michael Jackson parodies, the No. 1 hit "Eat It", and "Who's Fat", have been Yancovic's most successful recordings.

From the Ask Al Archives:

Dan Shaw of Sutton/MA asks: How come on the back of your first album, it doesn't mention Jim West in the band, but instead it gives special thanks to him?

I don't think Jim actually played on the first album - Rick Derringer was doing pretty much all the guitar work in the beginning. However, Jim was playing live with us at the time and he was definitely part of the band, so we felt he should at least get a mention!

As for "many hours of searching," I guess you didn't know there's a list of everyone who's played on the albums. Jon has spent years collecting all that info for us.

When in doubt, check The Mothership. It's been a while since I've seen the RR vid, but I'm assuming that the soda-jerk would be our very own, multi-talented, Jim "Kimo" West.

CatraDhtem · Post by **CatraDhtem** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:40 pm

And that's Kim Bullard on keyboards in the MFN/BH video. I'm pretty sure he didn't start working with Al until around 1988, so it probably isn't him as that unknown fourth soda jerker in the ILRR video...while the other three are of course Jon, Jim, and Steve.

Post by **scottidog** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:48 pm

Post by **Elvis** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 10:25 pm

Could you be thinking of Pat Regan?

Pat Regan - keyboards
Recorded IN 3-D, DARE TO BE STUPID, and POLKA PARTY! Pat also joined Al onstage at the Starlight Amphitheater show in Burbank, June, 1984, and for a "practice show" the day before. He later went out on the '85 Stupid Tour and part of the '87 tour opening for the Monkees.

I'm pretty sure Al handled most of the keyboard stuff on the first album and early tour dates himself. He added Pat Regan as a touring keyboardist for the DTBS and Monkees tours to give him some more flexibility during live performances. And then added Rubén as a touring keyboardist for the OTDE Tour before eventually making him full time.

Dave

Post by **scottidog** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 11:43 pm

Al?

Yeah, I guess we forget sometimes that besides being the King of Parody, he's also a very talented musician.

Post by **JDTurnbull272** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:09 am

Elvis @ Aug 13 2007, 10:25 AM wrote: I'm pretty sure Al handled most of the keyboard stuff on the first album and early tour dates himself. He added Pat Regan as a touring keyboardist for the DTBS and Monkees tours to give him some more flexibility during live performances. And then added Rubén as a touring keyboardist for the OTDE Tour before eventually making him full time.

In recordings I have seen of his early touring days, most of the time, it was usually Al on the keyboards. In fact, I have even seen Jim with a keyboard in front of him a couple times (if anyone remembers the "Like A Surgeon - Truth or Dare" days back when Ruben was bellydancing up on stage...) But for the most part, I think that Al handled most of the keyboards. Once he got a more regular player up there (like Pat or Ruben) it allowed him to be more active up on stage since he wasn't tied down to a stationary instrument.

Post by **Elvis** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 3:41 am

Yeah, Jim played keyboards live for LAS(MTODV) and AP (still does). And recently I've been seeing Steve playing the keyboard during TITDT -- a couple notes here and there, Rubén still handles the majority of it.

Dave