Latest news with #BarbaraStreisand
CBS News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Commack High School's legendary band teacher retiring after 40 years
Commack High School has many standout features, including its teachers! Over 30, including the principal, are Commack High graduates. As teachers, they're now making an impact on the students' lives, especially Dr. Frank Hanson, the legendary band teacher. Commack's legendary band leader retiring Like many at Commack High, Dr. Hanson made his mark on his students. The ease with which he teaches music and his experience are legendary. "It's special because we have this teacher here, Dr. Hanson, who, he's played with Barbara Streisand, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra. He does Broadway shows in the pit, and he still does it with teaching. He's phenomenal," senior Forrest Meyer, said. "I think the kids really just want to know that you care about them. They really don't care about what you've done or what you do," Hanson said. "Every once in a while, I might say something because something that we do here might remind me of a professional situation that's gone on, and I might tell a story like that, but it's never to brag ... I was on the road with Tony Bennett, then 'who's Tony Bennett,' you know?" Hanson is hanging it up after 40 years, including 28 years at Commack High, where he helped orchestrate the musical paths of countless students. "You learn that a lot of times they just want to be seen. They want to be listened to, they don't want to be talked down to you, which Hanson never did. So it's a healthy balance between, hey, you've got to do this, but also, I get that you're still getting comfortable with this instrument," Meyer said. "Forrest is a great musician," Hanson said. "He's in our Jazz Messengers, and the Jazz Messengers is a very small jazz group, about five, six, seven, eight musicians that I handpick. So in order to be in that ensemble, you have to be of the very best in our department. So he's one of our best." Hanson is also one of the best. At the spring concert, his final as the conductor, over 60 former students returned to say thank you and job well done. "I have nothing but gratitude. I'm really, it's just an honor to get to be here every single day with these kids," he said.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Rick Derringer, ubiquitous guitarist in US pop and rock, dies aged 77
Rick Derringer, the singer and guitarist who topped the US charts with his band the McCoys and was a sideman for a host of stars including Barbara Streisand, Cyndi Lauper and Steely Dan, has died aged 77. The news was announced in a Facebook post by his close friend Tony Wilson, who did not give a cause of death. While he didn't achieve household name status, Derringer was one of the great Zelig figures of American pop and rock, in a career stretching back to his mid-teens. Born Richard Zehringer in Ohio, he and his family moved to Union City, Indiana, where he formed garage rockers the McCoys. They got the chance to record their own version of the rhythm and blues song My Girl Sloopy, with a 17-year-old Derringer as frontman – renamed Hang on Sloopy, it reached No 1 in the US in 1965. After Ohio State University's marching band started playing it at college football games, it got another boost in popularity and eventually, in 1985, Ohio designated it the state's official rock song. The McCoys had another US Top 10 hit with the follow-up, a cover of Little Willie John's Fever. Come On, Let's Go reached No 22 the following year and the group recorded five albums together. The McCoys then partnered with blues rocker Johnny Winter for the group Johnny Winter And, who made the first recording of another Derringer rock classic: Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo. The definitive version came in 1973, performed by Derringer for his debut solo album All American Boy. This raunchy and swaggering hard-rock track reached No 23 in the US, and later earned high-profile syncs on the soundtracks to Richard Linklater film Dazed and Confused and the fourth season of Stranger Things. Also in 1973, Derringer returned to the top of the US charts thanks to his production and guitar playing for the Edgar Winter Group (fronted by the brother of Johnny Winter), on the hard-rocking instrumental Frankenstein. He also contributed to their No 14 hit Free Ride the same year. Derringer continued to release studio albums, eventually numbering 14 in all, but his most high-profile work came as a guitarist and producer for others. By 1973 he'd already played on a couple of songs on Alice Cooper's 1971 album Killer, and begun a fruitful partnership with Todd Rundgren, appearing on a number of his albums over the years. He later played on the Steely Dan albums Countdown to Ecstasy, Katy Died and Gaucho, and, in collaboration with Jim Steinman, two of the biggest power ballads of the 1980s: Air Supply's Making Love Out of Nothing at All and Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart. Derringer went on to work with another Steinman acolyte, Meat Loaf, on the album Blind Before I Stop and the TV show Way Off Broadway, and played lead guitar on the Steinman-penned Left in the Dark, the lead single from Barbra Streisand's 1984 album Emotion. Another repeat collaborator was Weird 'Al' Yankovic, including on his Grammy-winning Michael Jackson spoof Eat It. More cheerfully silly work was in the world of American wrestling, with Derringer writing Hulk Hogan's theme song Real American and producing tie-in albums for the World Wrestling Federation. The 1980s and 90s brought a partnership with Cyndi Lauper – Derringer played on her album True Colours and A Night to Remember, and joined her touring band. He later went on three world tours with Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band, and recorded albums with his wife Jenda, including one with their children Lory and Marn. Derringer continued to tour throughout his life, and his most recent album Rock the Yacht, another collaboration with Jenda, was released in 2023.
