Dr. Hook, the band that wanted a cover of Rolling Stone Magazine... and got it

[luisam]

Dr. Hook, the band that wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine

 

Dr. Hook as anything other than what they were: a down-and-dirty Jersey bar band whose tunes more often than not crossed the line into novelty rock, an outlet for the pop-lyrical efforts of countercultural humorist and children's author Shel Silverstein. Much of the earlier Hook material came from the pen of the multi-talented Shel Silverstein, not least classics like Sylvia’s Mother, Carry me, Carrie and The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, I Don’t Want to Be Alone Tonight.

The biggest hit of Dr. Hook's early career was "Cover of the Rolling Stone" a rollicking country-rock tune composed by Silverstein, whose mission in writing the song was fairly transparent. In "Cover of the Rolling Stone," Dr. Hook makes unsubstantiated boasts about playing to giant crowds all over the world, cruising in limousines, bedding young groupies who embroider their custom-made clothes, being "loved everywhere we go," and—perhaps most accurately—taking "all kinds of pills that give us all kinds of thrills." But "the thrill we've never known," they qualify, "is the thrill that'll getcha when you get your picture / on the cover of the Rolling Stone." It was a more innocent time I guess, and the trick worked.
 

The song became the self-fulfilling prophesy and later that year, Dr. Hook appeared—in demented cartoon caricature—right where they'd hoped to end up.

 

Ron Haffkine, the group's manager, visited Jann Wenner, one of the founders of Rolling Stone, proclaiming "I’ve just given you guys the best commercial for this rag that you’ll ever get." Wenner then sent Cameron Crowe (who later became movie director, producer, screenwriter, journalist, author, and actor, wrote and directed Jerry McGuire), then 16 years old, to interview the band for issue 131, March 1973. Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show appeared on the cover, albeit in caricature rather than photograph.

 

 

 

 

Then the trouble began. The BBC radio refused to play "Cover of the Rolling Stone," seeing it as the commercial suck-up that it was, advertising a trademark name, which was against the BBC's policy. Previously, the Kinks had to change "Coca-Cola" to "Cherry Cola" in their song "Lola" to get around the rule). CBS Records responded by setting up a phone line that would play the song to anyone willing to dial in, which helped build the buzz. The BBC only played the song after some of their DJs edited themselves shouting the words "Radio Times" (the BBC's magazine) over "Rolling Stone".

 

The founding core of the band consisted of three Southerners who had worked together in a band called The Chocolate Papers: George Cummings, Ray Sawyer and Billy Francis. They had played the South, up and down the East Coast, and into the Midwest, before breaking up. Cummings, who moved to New Jersey with the plan of forming a new band, brought back Sawyer to rejoin him. They then took on future primary vocalist, New Jersey native Dennis Locorriere, at first as a bass player. Francis, who had returned South after the Chocolate Papers broke up, returned to be the new band's keyboardist.
 

The band's loopy stagecraft took shape in a club near a bus station in Union City, New Jersey, where New Jersey Native Dennis Locorriere and Southern honky-tonk veteran Ray Sawyer hooked up in 1968. The band were introduced to the world as Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show: Tonic for the Soul on an early poster. That was a pretty perceptive description – or prescription – as band statements go. That was on a poster they stuck in the window of the club, because the guy there said they needed a name to play there. Dr. Hook wasn't named after Ray Sawyer, even if possibly was inspred somehow: With his eyepatch, a memento from an injury received in a near-fatal 1967 car accident, and battered straw hat, there's something of the pirate and something of the raving hillbilly about him. On the other hand, the Captain Hook character from Peter Pan is neither a doctor nor wears an eyepatch.

With smart-aleck hits and stage antics that included dressing up as their own opening acts, Dr. Hook and the Medecine Show gladly assumed the role of the clown princes of Seventies pop. Their off-center, sardonic approach to music making kept Hook and his cronies on the charts for over ten years, netting them thirty-five gold and platinum records.

They got their start singing one of cartoonist-songwriter Shel Silverstein's songs for Dustin Hoffman's 1970 movie Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying All Those Terrible Things About Me?, and it was Silverstein's mock ballad "Sylvia's Mother" that first put the motley band on the charts in 1972.

The following February, another of Silverstein's musical satires, "The Cover of Rolling Stone," put Dr. Hook back in the Top Ten, and by March the band was on the cover of the magazine. "The only thing I regret is that when we got on the cover," says Locorriere, "we were a bunch of asshｏles and we had nothing to say."

Although the band which meantime had shorted its name to Dr. Hook, had good sales, they failed to come up with a successful follow-up single. Between their two aptly-titled albums Belly Up! and  Bankrupt, their  nonchalance about business matters led them to bankruptcy, nkruptcy, lost a founding member, and languished in self-pitying obscurity.

 

They staged a comeback in 1976 with a Top Ten remake of Sam Cooke's "Once Sixteen," but both Sawyer and Locorrier felt that the band's original spirit had been lost,  it became a disco-influenced soft rock ban, specializing in workmanlike ballads such as "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman", "Sexy Eyes" and "Better Love Next Time"

 

"Our music got real safe in the late Seventies," says Locorriere. "We were on Solid Gold until you wanted to puke. And we started to hate our albums."

Their hitmaking continued through this period, but Sawyer finally left in disgust in 1983. "I became a product with a patch and a hat," he said. The band did a few more tours to pay back bills before packing it in in 1985. "Everybody knew it was time to do something else," says Locorriere. "When we started to play clubs where our picture and Chubby Checker's were in the lobby, I would think, 'Is he coming back or are we on our way out?' "

 

Locorriere retains ownership of the Dr. Hook name and uses the name for his current solo band as "Dr Hook Starring Dennis Locorriere;" he continues to tour the world. From 1998 to 2015, Sawyer was granted a license to tour separately as "Ray Sawyer of Dr. Hook" and "Dr. Hook featuring Ray Sawyer;" the two have been on good terms, and Sawyer, now 80 years old, has not performed publicly since his last tour ended in October 2015.

 

 

 

[BioHazard]

this is one of my favorites  

Dr. Hook - Better Love Next Time

 

[luisam]

By final 70s, early 80s Dr. Hook made some really popular records in this highly commercial soft rock / disco music style like "Sexy Eyes" or "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman".

 

 

 

 

 

[funkyy]

I remember them well. They were regulars on Top Of The Pops every week. At that time TOTP was THE music program to be on to reach a wide audience of record buyers. I always wondered about the eye patch, I wondered if it was just a gimmick, so thanks for clearing that up. I never bought any of their records in the 70's but I used to tape the chart show from the radio (transistor radio, C60 cassette...!!!! lol). They had some catchy hits and were listenable even if you weren't a fan.