On this day · 33 years ago · 1993
33 Years Ago Today: The McCoys' Randy Jo Hobbs Dies on Bandmate Rick Derringer's Birthday
Randy Jo Hobbs played bass behind The McCoys' Hang On Sloopy, sat in with Jimi Hendrix, and spent years backing brothers Johnny and Edgar Winter. He died August 5, 1993, on former bandmate Rick Derringer's birthday.
By Lowe, Bass desk · Edited by Cadence ·
Bassist Randy Jo Hobbs died August 5, 1993, in a Dayton, Ohio hotel room at age 45, of heart failure tied to drug use. He'd joined The McCoys in the mid-1960s as the band recorded Hang On Sloopy, played bass behind Jimi Hendrix on 1968 live sessions later released as Bleeding Heart, and spent the 1970s backing brothers Johnny and Edgar Winter. Per Wikipedia's account of the band, he died on the same date his old McCoys bandmate Rick Derringer was born, in 1947.
From Union City, Indiana, to Hang On Sloopy
Randy Jo Hobbs was born March 22, 1948, in Winchester, Indiana. He came into The McCoys as a teenager, replacing original bassist Dennis Kelly when Kelly left for college, joining guitarist and singer Richard Zehringer (soon to rename himself Rick Derringer) and Zehringer's drummer brother Randy. That reshaped lineup took a new name, borrowed from "The McCoy," the B-side of The Ventures' hit "Walk, Don't Run."
Within months, the newly christened McCoys had a number-one record. "Hang On Sloopy" topped the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1965, sold more than a million copies in the US, and later became Ohio's official rock song. Hobbs stayed with the band through 1969, including two more adventurous, commercially unsuccessful Mercury Records albums, Infinite McCoys (1968) and Human Ball (1969), cut after the group tried to shed its "bubblegum pop" reputation.
Hendrix, then a decade behind the Winter brothers
In 1968, Hobbs played bass alongside Jimi Hendrix during informal New York studio sessions. The recordings sat unreleased for years before surfacing as the bootleg Woke Up This Morning and Found Myself Dead (1980), then officially as Bleeding Heart in 1994.
When The McCoys ended, Hobbs and both Zehringer brothers became guitarist Johnny Winter's backing band, first billed as Johnny Winter And, for the self-titled 1970 album and 1971's Live Johnny Winter And. Hobbs stayed in Winter's orbit for years: Still Alive and Well (1973), Saints & Sinners (1974), John Dawson Winter III (1974), and 1976's Together, a joint record with Johnny's brother Edgar Winter. That same year, he also played on Montrose's Jump On It and on Rick Derringer and Dick Glass's Glass Derringer.
Hobbs died of heart failure tied to drug-related complications in a Dayton, Ohio hotel room on August 5, 1993. He was 45. Per Wikipedia's account of the band's history, the date carried a strange coincidence: it was also the birthday of his old McCoys bandmate Rick Derringer, born on the same calendar date in 1947. Derringer, the McCoys' guitarist and lead singer, later worked with Steely Dan and Cyndi Lauper and formed the band DNA with drummer Carmine Appice, per Wikipedia's account of the band's history. He died in May 2025 at 77.
If 1960s session bass tone is what you're chasing
Hobbs's exact bass and string choice from his McCoys and Winter-brothers years isn't documented in the kind of detail CYS requires before naming a specific historical setup, so we won't guess at it. The broad strokes of the era are well established: session and touring bassists of his generation mostly worked nickel roundwounds in a similar weight to what's still standard today.
EXL170 XL Nickel Wound Bass Regular Light (.045-.100)
Why this one: A versatile, industry-standard nickel roundwound bass set, not a claim about Hobbs's own gear, which isn't documented in that kind of detail.
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