Song of the Day 6/4: The Edgar Winter Group, “Frankenstein”

Among the credits I left out of Rick Derringer’s CV the other day was his production of this 1973 No. 1 hit for the Edgar Winter Group, one of the great instrumentals of the classic rock era. Derringer edited a much longer studio jam down to under 5 minutes the way they had to do it back then: by slicing and splicing the recording tape. The song was named not for its lumbering menace of its lead riff but for its master tape, which drummer Chuck Ruff said was spliced so many times it looked like Boris Karloff’s movie monster.

They might make you wince now, but those synthesizer sounds were new to audiences when the song appeared on the debut album of the Edgar Winter Group, “They Only Come Out at Night.”

You can get an idea of what Derringer had to work with from this live version the band played on the UK music show “The Old Grey Whistle Test.” By that point guitarist Ronnie Montrose had left the band, replaced by Derringer. Edgar, BTW, was the first to add a strap to a keyboard, which looks a little awkward when he starts his alto sax part and becomes totally superfluous when he switches to timbales for a drum duet with Ruff.

It wasn’t widely realized when it was climbing the charts, but the then-untitled instrumental had debuted three years earlier, when Edgar was playing keyboards in his brother’s band, pre-synths and pre-Derringer. Edgar starts out on electric piano before switching to a second kit for a drum duel and duet with “Uncle” John Turner. This live version was finally released in 2004 on a reissue of Johnny’s “Second Winter” LP.