Derrick may best be remembered as a fiddle and mandolin player of Hank Williams Jr.'s Bama Band in the 1980s.
Derrick began his professional career in music as a teenager, playing a short stint with Flatt and Scruggs, and then enlisted in the United States Army.
After a long career, Derrick died from heart and kidney failure at Marshall Medical Center North, Marshall County, Alabama[1] on January 4, 2008, and was interred at Mount Oak Cemetery, near Arab, Alabama.
Derrick recorded and toured with the Stanley Brothers and played both fiddle and mandolin on the original sessions of such Hank Williams, Jr. hits as "All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down" and "A Country Boy Can Survive".
His career included numerous appearances on the Grand Ole Opry and Midnight Jamboree with several different bands.