-2 min readen
DR. HOOK: Cover to Cover
Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. Turner's records reached the top of the rhythm-and-blues charts. Some of...
Dr. Hook Fan
St. Thomas - Ontario
I'm a part-time Photographer (especially Food!) with photos on several stock photography sites. I'm a big fan of old music—and Dr. Hook.
77 articles
Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. Turner's records reached the top of the rhythm-and-blues charts. Some of...
Julie Felix (June 14, 1938 – March 22, 2020), an American-born, British-based folk/folk rock recording artist, played a key role in bringing folk music into the mainstream in the 1960s with her striki...
“ The Cover of ‘Rolling Stone'” is just one of the songs Shel Silverstein wrote for Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. It’s a parody of the success in the music industry and the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. It...
Paul Overstreet (born March 17, 1955) is an American country music singer and songwriter. He recorded 10 studio albums between 1982 and 2005, and charted 16 singles on the Billboard country charts, in...
The Rooftop Singers were an American progressive folk-singing trio in the early 1960s, best known for the hit "Walk Right In". The group was composed of Erik Darling and Bill Svanoe (vocals, guitar) w...
Norma Cecilia Tanega (born January 30, 1939) is an American folk and pop singer-songwriter, painter, and experimental musician. She wrote songs for Dusty Springfield and other prominent musicians. Nor...
"The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" is a song by American poet and songwriter Shel Silverstein. It was originally recorded by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show , with the name spelled "Jordon". The song describes...
James Cecil Dickens (December 19, 1920 – January 2, 2015), better known by his stage name, Little Jimmy Dickens , was an American country music singer and songwriter famous for his humorous novelty so...
Things exploded for Dr. Hook when their producer, Ron Haffkine, found a little tune called " A Little Bit More " on a vinyl record costing 35 cents at a flea market in San Francisco. It was written an...
This week I'd like to take you back to the 1940s for another look at songs from World War ll. If you missed Part 1, click here . There are so many great songs from the War years; here's but a sampling...
Continuing with our Christmas songs, these from the 1960s bring back memories from my teen-aged years. How about you? If you missed my previous posts, click here for Christmas songs from the 1940s and...
Time for another round of Christmas songs, this time form the 1950s. These are the songs that I grew up with and they bring back so many memories. By the way, if you missed Christmas Music from the 19...
Nothing reminds me of Christmastime like Christmas music. Although the following songs were recorded before I was born, they played every Christmas during my childhood. Just hearing them now takes me...
This week I'd like to take you back to the 1950s for some more Doo-Wop. If you missed Part 1, click here . Built upon vocal harmony, Doo-Wop was one of the most mainstream, pop-oriented R&B styles of...
We've taken a look at how girls saw their boyfriends back in the 1960s (see Part 1 and Part 2 ). Perhaps it's time now to see how the guys viewed their girlfriends in song. Del Shannon (born Charles W...
Times have certainly changed over the years, particularly in the dating/romance scene. Today I'd like to take you back to the 1960s to look once again at how girls saw their boyfriends back then. If y...
This week I'd like to take you back to the 1950s. Since the 1940s, there was always a funny song or novelty record on the charts. In the late 1960s, though, rock music took a serious turn and novelty...
Halloween or Hallowe'en (a contraction of All Hallows' Evening), also known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Eve, is a celebration observed in a number of countries on October 31, the...
Not everyone was born into the families we visited on TV every week in the 1960s such as “Father Knows Best”, “Leave It To Beaver”, and “Ozzie and Harriet”. On the radio, we were exposed to “the other...
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, shortened from 1975 to Dr. Hook , was an American rock band, formed in Union City, New Jersey. At the height of their success, Dr. Hook was at the top of the charts in 42...
Let's go back to the 1940s today for a second round of Big Band Leaders. If you missed Part 1, click here . A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music which became pop...
Popular music dominated the charts for the first half of the 1950's decade. Vocal-driven classic pop replaced Big Band/Swing, although it often used orchestras to back the vocalists. 1940s style Croon...
According to superstition, today is supposed to be unlucky. In fact, the fear of Friday the 13th has a scientific name: paraskevidekatriaphobia. It occurs when the 13th day of the month in the Gregori...
For those of you who have not visited my Hive, Music of the 40s, 50s, and 60s , I interspersed my music video posts with Producer posts under the titles of "Musical Decades" and "Music History". These...
Everyone loves a story. Today I want to take you back to the 1960s to listen to some story songs. Domingo "Sam" Samudio (born 6 March 1937, Dallas, Texas), better known by his stage name Sam the Sham...
Back to the '60s today with Part 2 of The Wall of Sound (also called the Spector Sound). If you missed Part 1, click here . The Wall of Sound is a music production formula developed by record producer...
With the end of Vaudeville by the 1930s, some of the most prominent vaudevillians migrated to cinema and some continued their careers out of combining live performance, radio and film roles. Today I'd...
Psychedelic music emerged during the 1960s among folk and rock bands in the United States and Britain, creating the subgenres of psychedelic folk, psychedelic rock (or acid rock), and psychedelic pop...
Artists who had a song that hit the top of the Billboard pop chart, but never again reached the Top 40, are known as One-Hit Wonders. This week, let's take a look at a few of those hits from the 1950s...
Sunshine pop (first known as soft pop) is a sub-genre of pop music originating in the United States, mainly the state of California, in the mid-1960s, although it only acquired the name later. Accordi...
Christophe Kenner (December 25, 1929 – January 25, 1976) was a New Orleans R&B singer and songwriter, best known for two hit singles in the early 1960s, which became staples in the repertoires of many...
The legend of Stagger Lee is one of the most important and enduring stories from American folklore. It is a tale that originated from African-American oral tradition. There are many different versions...
The words ‘hep’ and ‘hip’ both emerged in the US jazz scene during the 1930s, originally meaning ‘in the know’, used to describe those parts of the scene or real fans of jazz who knew about the music...
“When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman" is a popular single by Dr. Hook. It was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Alabama. It was written by Even Stevens, who followed producer Ron Haffkine...
A singing cowboy was a hero of early Western films, popularized by many of the B-movies of the 1930s and 1940s. The typical singing cowboys were white-hat-wearing, clean-shaven heroes with the habit o...
Surf Music is a subgenre of rock music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Orange County and other areas of Southern California. It was especially popular from 1962 to 1964. The gen...
Ragtime music evolved in the late 19th century from the jigs and march music played by African American bands, referred to as "jig piano" or "piano thumping". By the start of the 20th century, Ragtime...
Dr. Hook recorded many songs by the poet/children's book author, Shel Silverstein. In fact, their first album, Doctor Hook, contained all of Shel's songs but one; their second album, Sloppy Seconds, c...
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western musical styles suc...
‘Jive’, ‘Golden Leaf ’, ‘Texas Tea’, ‘Viper’, 'Weed', 'Reefer'. Since the legalization of marijuana is a hot topic at the moment, I thought this would be a fun time to take a look at songs in the past...
Summertime in St. Thomas, Ontario—the Railway Capital of Canada—and here's what all the kids have been waiting for. We have a three-day fair every year called “The Iron Horse Festival”. Today, I'd lik...
This week, I'd like to take you back to the dances of the 1960s, when back then, it seemed like a new dance came out every week. To set the mood, here's Ray Charles in a clip from The Blues Brothers m...
Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was an American musician and bandleader specializing in satirical arrangements of popular songs—the Weird Al of his day. Ballads and c...
Mirriam Johnson, known professionally as Jessi Colter (born May 25, 1943), is an American country music artist who is best known for her collaboration with her husband, country singer and songwriter W...
Crooner is an American category of male singers of jazz standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook, either backed by a full orchestra, a big band or by a piano. Today I'd like to take you back...
This week, let's listen to a few songs that were composed to tell the story of an event. " Sink the Bismarck " is a march song by country music singer Johnny Horton and songwriter Tillman Franks, base...
Vietnam: a conflict that has sometimes been described as the first rock ‘n’ roll war. The popular songs of the day helped sustain troops in their jungle outposts and provided a connection to home via...
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City, where he was a r...
The song, Long Tall Texan, has been recorded by many singers including Jerry Woodard, The Beach Boys, Conway Twitty, The Kingsmen, Buck Owens, Lyle Lovett, Doug Supernaw and Jerry Reed. Here is the st...
This week I'd like to take you back to the 1950s for something a little different. From the 1940s through the 1960s, there were many funny songs or novelty records on the charts. Let's take a look at...
Although house-rent parties once flourished in the black neighbourhoods of Chicago, Detroit, Washington, and other cities, they have become most closely associated with Harlem. During the 1920s and 19...
The British Invasion occurred in the early '60s when bands and other culture from the UK "invaded" North America and became significant to the rising "counterculture" on both sides of the Atlantic. If...
Following from my previous post (see MUSICAL DECADES - 1940s - Boogie-Woogie ), boogie-woogie music became so popular that Swing bands at the time were expected to have a few numbers in their repertoi...
Samuel Cook (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964), known professionally as Sam Cooke , was an American singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. Influential as both a singer and composer, he is commonly...
This week I'd like to take you back to the 1940s again, this time to listen to some toe-tappin', boogie-woogie music. Boogie-woogie is a musical genre that became popular in the late 1920s, but develo...
John Philip Sousa (November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor, known primarily for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, h...
The British Invasion was a phenomenon that occurred when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom, as well as other aspects of British culture, became popular in the United States and Canada, a...
The first major blues and jazz singer on record and one of the most powerful of all time, Bessie Smith rightly earned the title of "The Empress of the Blues." Even on her first records in 1923, her pa...
When we think of the 1950s, we think of Rock 'n' Roll. However, instrumental music was big on the pop chart back then as well. In fact, not only did it co-exist with Rock 'n' Roll but it also competed...
Jessie Hill (December 9, 1932 – September 17, 1996) was an American R&B and Louisiana blues singer and songwriter, best remembered for the classic song "Ooh Poo Pah Doo". The origins of "Ooh Poo Pah D...
Back to the '60s today with The Wall of Sound (also called the Spector Sound). This is a music production formula developed by record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in the 1960s, with assi...
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, shortened from 1975 to Dr. Hook, was an American rock band, formed in Union City, New Jersey. The band had eight years of regular hits, in both the United States and thro...
This week I'd like to take you back to World War ll. There are so many great songs from the War years; here's but a sampling of them. Dean Paul Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December...
" Happy Trails " by Dale Evans, was the theme song for the 1940s and 1950s radio program and the 1950s television show starring Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Rogers, always sung over the end credits of th...
I just came across a method of time management called The Pomodoro Technique . A n Italian productivity consultant named Francesco Cirillo came up with it in 1980, using a timer shaped like a tomato,...
Times have certainly changed over the years, particularly in the dating/romance scene. Today I'd like to take you back to the 1960s to look at how girls saw their boyfriends back then. The Shirelles w...
I have seen many examples on the Internet of poorly designed book covers, especially eBook covers. In fact, there is a site at LousyBookCovers.com filled with pictures of book covers that authors have...
John Weldon "J. J." Cale (December 5, 1938 – July 26, 2013) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Though he deliberately avoided the limelight (being temperamentally averse to celebrity)...
This week I'd like to take you back to the 1950s. Built upon vocal harmony, doo-wop was one of the most mainstream, pop-oriented R&B styles of the time. Singers gathered on street corners, and in subw...
Shel Silverstein wrote whimsical hits like “A Boy Named Sue,” "The Unicorn," and “The Cover of the Rolling Stone.” But he took a more sober turn with “Sylvia’s Mother,” a No. 5 hit in 1972 for Dr. Hoo...
This week I'd like to take you back to the 1960s. Motown is an American record company founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation o...
" Three Little Fishies " is a song, recorded by Kay Kyser and His Orchestra, with words by Josephine Carringer and Bernice Idins and music by Saxie Dowell. The song tells the story of three fishes, wh...
Soundies were three-minute American musical 16mm films, produced in New York, Chicago , and Hollywood between 1940 and 1946, They each contained a song, dance and/or band/orchestral number. The comple...
A book consists of two design elements: the cover on the outside and the layout and formatting on the inside. Today I'd like to talk about THE BACK COVER The back cover includes more items than the fr...
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. A big band typically consists of ap...
"The Ballad of Lucy Jordon" is a song by American poet and songwriter Shel Silverstein. It was originally recorded by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, with the name spelled "Jordon". The song describes t...
A book consists of two design elements: the cover on the outside and the layout and formatting on the inside. Today I'd like to talk about THE FRONT COVER The front cover needs to be exciting or eye-c...
