Dr. Hook

In 1970, New Jersey bar band Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show was chosen to record songs for the film Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? ∙ Their name—a riff on Peter Pan’s Captain Hook—was inspired by the eye patch worn by cofrontman Ray Sawyer as the result of injuries from a 1967 car crash. ∙ Columbia Records chief Clive Davis signed them after an audition in his office, during which Jay David drummed on a wastebasket and keyboard player Billy Francis danced on his desk. ∙ Humorist Shel Silverstein, who had penned the Johnny Cash hit “A Boy Named Sue,” wrote several of the group’s biggest hits. ∙ The dream described in their Shel Silverstein-written Top 10 hit “The Cover of Rolling Stone” came true when the magazine offered them just that—but the cover image was a caricature, not a photo. ∙ The band blended music and comedy on record as well as onstage, sometimes opening their own shows as fictional groups. ∙ After shortening their name to Dr. Hook, they scored a Gold album—the disco-flavored Pleasure & Pain—and three more Top 10 singles.