Should you poach someone from another band just so you can get your mitts on a song they wrote? Sure….if that song turns out to be a classic rock staple played millions of times on the radio and featured in countless movies and television shows. All’s fair in love and war and hit records.

Edgar Winter and his older brother Johnny grew up in Texas, surrounded by oil and music. Raised in a musical family, Edgar picked up keyboards and saxophone and Johnny became a guitar slinger. The pair stood out around town not only for their precocious musical chops but also for their albinism, a look that became even more striking when they grew their platinum blonde hair down past their shoulders. Johnny got the first record deal in 1967 and his baby brother guested on his first couple of albums before scoring his own chance in 1970.

Edgar’s first few records featured backing musicians he knew from playing around Texas and Louisiana, but sales were sluggish. For his fourth album, They Only Come Out At Night, he decided to try something new and put together his own hand-picked gang of crack studio pros. Guitarist/producer Rick Derringer and bassist Randy Jo Hobbs came over from brother Johnny’s band (and before that, The McCoys, who we met here), lead guitarist extraordinaire Ronnie Montrose had recently left Van Morrison’s band, and drummer Johnny Badanjek played with Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels throughout the 1960s.

And then there was the kid.

21-year-old singer and multi-instrumentalist Dan Hartman was a child prodigy from Pennsylvania who studied classical piano before joining (at the age of 13) — and eventually taking over– his brother’s band, The Legends. He’d been playing with them, writing and releasing singles on tiny record labels, for years with nothing even approaching a hit. A demo tape recorded by The Legends made its way into Edgar Winter’s hands — a tape containing a track called “Free Ride.” Hey, kid…wanna join my new band?

And so it came to pass. He played different instruments on other tracks, but on his own song, Hartman played the distinctive opening guitar lick and sang lead vocals, and when “Free Ride” was released in the fall of 1973 it flew up to the Billboard Top 15. Earlier that year, The Edgar Winter Group hit #1 with an instrumental titled “Frankenstein,” so Hartman went from slogging away in obscurity one year to topping the charts and also turning his own song into a classic rock cornerstone the next. Wise choice, kid. Wise choice, Edgar.

So if you’re confused about which way to go, head to the promised land …. with The Edgar Winter Group.