Dennis Locorriere

Dennis was the lead singer of Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show, in the 1960s and 1970s. He was born in New Jersey in 1949. He was always interested in drawing and in music and in the 1960’s he began to play professionally. He met with Ray Sawyer, who together with other Southern-born musicians had been in a band called the Chocolate Papers. They had played gigs in the South and round the Mid-west but relocated to New York. They formed a new band, and unable to think of a name, when told by a bar manager than they had to have one, they came up with “Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show”. Dr Hook was a reference to Ray Sawyer who had an eyepatch due to losing his eye in a motor accident…(like Captain Hook). The Medicine show was a reference to their taking drugs. Like most musicians at the time, they worked very hard, toured a lot of the time and coped with the stress of long hours of travel as best they could.