"All American Boy" by Rick Derringer (1973)

Fun Fact:
Per the liner notes, there is a thing called a hair-drum... and Rick Derringer knows how to play it.

"There's a lotta sexy girls out there and I've got a built-in cosmic need for a TEENAGE LOVE AFFAIR."

Rock-and-Roll-Hoochie-Classic:
Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo

Song That Makes My Brain Melt and Ooze out of My Ear because it Exists:
Hold

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Average (2/2 stars)

"All American Boy" sounds almost exactly like what you would expect from a one hit wonder.  Of course it opens with Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo.  After that, there are a few oases of interesting bits scattered  throughout an otherwise choppy and uneven bunch of space fillers.  Oh yeah, and there are songs with titles like The Airport Giveth (The Airport Taketh Away) and Slide on over Slinky  that get devliered without a single drop of irony whatsoever.

Except that...

Joe Walsh shows up and plays on a couple of tracks.  Okay, I get that.  Joe Walsh played on pretty much everybody's stuff in the early seventies.

And Edgar Winter does keys on a few more.  Fair enough.  That crazy albino Texan  probably should have been on more stuff in the early seventies.

And then, of course, Derringer cowrote one of the songs on this LP with Patti Smith.  3... 2.. 1... Wait, what?!  Yes, THAT Patti Smith.  The protopunk icon who did Horses and Gloria also helped pen the most schmaltzy and terrible ballad on this LP (and trust me, that's saying a lot).

Additionally, Toots Thielemans plays harmonica on one number.  I no idea who he is, but with a name like that, he's got to be awesome.

So, is it an album?  No.  As the cover art suggests, "All American Boy" can't decide whether it wants to be rock or pop, so it just keeps bouncing back and forth between the two... except for when it shifts into smooth jazz mode, which it totally does every now and then.

Up next, do you NWOBHM?  Well, you're about to as we explore "Denim and Leather" by Saxon.