"The Cover Of The Rolling Stone" Revisited
"What's Their Names" Make the front page AGAIN!
by Mike Paquin
©2008 {All rights reserved, may not be reprinted without permission}
Many folks of a certain age remember fondly Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show's song about getting on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine (then a very big deal in Rock circles), it was something of a hit in early 1973, for the band. The song about getting on the cover lead to Dr. Hook's appearance on the cover. A select handful of rock fans surely also recall the cover itself, that it all lead to. Dr. Hook fans ask me dozens and dozens of times a year, if the band ever was in fact "on the cover"?
To answer this quite often asked inquiry, for those who still might not know..
YES YES YES, yes indeed Virginia, there is a Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show cover of Rolling Stone. Dr. Hook's Ray, Dennis, and Billy made the cover of issue 132, in March of 1973. Sadly, for some still unknown reason, the other members of the band were NOT included in the image used, and thus were not immortalized, quite unfairly, in this writer's opinion. The band successfully used the gimmick conceived by their song-writer Shel Silverstein, of a song about getting on the cover to get them on the cover! The issue wound up being the best selling one ever, to that point, and is supposedly still one of the best selling Rolling Stone issues of all time. It was painted by a well known pop artist and Rolling Stone cover contributor David Gerstein. One of the images, that of Ray Sawyer, having been taken from a picture of Ray holding up a lid of grass, at the Rolling Stone building, thus the way his fingers appear in the image (go ahead take a look!).
The issue and it's story is somewhat well known, and yet not all known by just the average rock fan.
The track has garnered attention for a long time, such as it's inclusion in the semi-autobiographical Cameron Crowe film "Almost Famous"
That picture is based on Crowe's life as a Rock reporter for Rolling Stone and other magazines, starting as a teenager.
Crowe gained some fame behind his "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" story and film, then went on to Hollywood fame and fortune, with his Oscar winning movie "Jerry Maguire" among other films. However his start was in the 70's, as a boy writer for Rolling Stone, and thus clearly knew what he was doing with the Rolling Stone call-back in Almost Famous. His fiction band Stillwater (based mostly on Led Zeppelin) is told they'll appear on the cover and start singing the song at dinner, with the guys all singing along. Anyway, our band and their cover, do not always get the respect or credit they deserve, but.......
Today (October 6th 2008) Rolling Stone magazine was received by a mail subscriber/customer with a full-size reproduction copy wrap around cover of R.S. #132 around their regular John McCain cover. This is a promo for a new TV show premiering soon called "Life on Mars". It's a show about a cop from modern day, who ends up working back in 1973 using today's technology and experiences. Something of a Sci-Fi/Crime Drama time travel show. The show is a copy of an existing U.K. show.
I guess with the year and wanting to promote it through Rolling Stone, someone thought of the protective extra mailer cover and using the 1973 song and cover.
I'm not yet sure of the details, and will investigate further tomorrow, but to think that possibly hundreds of thousands of issues may have mailed out with this cover, brought tears to my eyes, literally. Since the original cover and thus the reprint, do NOT show the band's name, I'm sure it'll get past a heck of a lot of the modern readers. However, there is every reason to believe the cover will lead to at least a small upsurge of interest in the band, by old 70's fans who see it, and a few newer fans wondering who the heck it is. Also, the fact that it was used at all shows that Rolling Stone is very aware of the nostalgia this issue taps into for many Rock fans.
I'm quite excited and hope all fans get a chance to see it up close. I'm gonna work on getting some mint copies from Rolling Stone for folks.
I DO NOT think it will appear on news stands like this, probably just the mailed copies.
That's the news thus far, I'll try and update tomorrow.
Thanks for visiting!
Mike (MrDrHook) webmaster/site owner
Art (DozerDesigns) Site Maintenance
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