Dr. Hook
Country-rock band
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show was a band that combined country with pop and rock, and was perhaps best known for the catchy and witty hit song "The Cover of the Rolling Stone." They were among the bands that became popular during the s thanks to AM radio play. In later years, the band changed its material to disco-tinged ballads and had marginal success before breaking up.
The band was formed in in Union City, New Jersey, by singer-songwriter Dennis Locorriere and Ray Sawyer, a singer with a bold stage presence, including an eye patch needed after suffering injuries in a car accident. The remainder of the band was recruited from a group in which Sawyer played, called the Chocolate Papers. This included George Cummings, lead and steel guitars; Billy Francis, keyboards; and Popeye Phillips, drums. Phillips quit soon after the band was formed and was replaced by John "Jay" David.
The band "began playing some of the roughest bars in the Union City area, concentrating mostly on country music out of sheer necessity," according to Steve Huey, writing in All Music Guide. After a demo recording came to the attention of Ron Haffkine, musical director
Moving to San Francisco just in time to miss the Summer of Love, he went to work teaching guitar and playing almost every bar in the Bay Area. He also did studio work, playing guitar on sessions that ranged from folk guitar for Shel Silverstein to Fender-bending for the electronic duo, Beaver and Krause, with more than a few ad agency jingles thrown in to help pay the rent. Shel introduced him to Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show in and he spent the next 15 years touring the world with them, and earning eight gold records.
Home from the road, he runs the acoustic guitar department at Bananas, plays countryesque music with Gayle Lynn and the Hired Hands, jazzesque music with Annie Z. and The Best She Could do, and writes for Acoustic Guitar Magazine.
Rik teaches ongoing lessons in flatpicking and fingerstyle acoustic guitar, slide guitar, and banjo, and a six-week course in enhanced practice and accelerated learning.
Prior to forming Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show, George Cummings, Ray Sawyer and Billy Francis were members of an earlier group called The Chocolate Papers, along with Bobby Dimingus, Popeye Phillips and Jimmy "Wolf Cub" Allen. After touring clubs in Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina, the six settled in Biloxi to open up their own club called Chez Joey. The group played as the house band for a while, then went to Chicago, where after a brief stint, Cummings left to form a new band in the New York area.
The year was when Cummings called his old friend Ray Sawyer to come to New Jersey and join him. This new group began performing using no name at all, until one night, a club owner asked George what name to use when advertising the band. Right on the spot, George came up with the name, Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, in reference to Ray's eye patch making him look like Captain Hook from Peter Pan. (Ray had lost his eye in an auto accident) and since drugs were all the rage at the time, he tacked on The Medicine Show. They had been performing together for about a month or two when Dennis Locorriere (Low-Cor-Ee-Air) came in one night and sat in on guitar.
In , cartoonist and songwriter Shel Silverstein visited Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show in the studio with a question: would they like to be on the cover of Rolling Stone? Since they were struggling for a hit, they said absolutely, although they couldn&#;t imagine how he would manage the trick. Silverstein then proceeded to play them &#;The Cover of Rolling Stone,&#; a complaint of jaded rock stars who haven&#;t yet achieved their dream of appearing on the front page of this publication: &#;We got all the friends that money can buy, so we&#;ll never have to be alone / And we keep gettin&#; richer but we can&#;t get our picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone.&#; Guitarist Rik Elswit remembered, &#;The dope being excellent, we were in no shape to really evaluate the song. So after we picked ourselves up off the floor and stifled most of the laughing, we went right about recording it.&#; About three hours later, they had recorded a hit single, which peaked at #6. In March , the magazine did feature the band on the cover, albeit with a cartoon of just three of their seven members and the caption &#;What&#;s-Their-Names Make the Cover.&#;
Since the song&#;s lyrics had promise
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