Share the night with 70s rock star

Dennis Locorriere says he is not out to recreate the 70s, but to do justice to some well-known songs.

Lead singer of hit band Dr Hook tours the world. By Paula Yeoman

For years, Dennis Locorriere shied away from singing Dr Hook songs as they had originally been intended, believing he shouldn't try to recreate the sound of a band that no longer existed. But after a change of heart, he's now touring the world and presenting the hits as they were.

Locorriere was one of the founding members of the band, known then as Dr Hook and the Medicine Show, and the voice of everything from Sylvia's Mother and Walk Right In, to Sharing The Night Together and When You're In Love With a Beautiful Woman.

When they disbanded, Locorriere went his own way, writing songs for others and making three solo albums. But it took years to start touring again and when he did, he stripped the songs bare.

"I went out there with just my guitars and 40 years of songs. I really wanted to take it back to something really basic. Even if I played to places that just had 2000 seats that was okay. People liked the intimacy of the show and they liked hearing the material raw," he says.

"I went on with my life. I didn't walk away from it. I just didn't lean on it," he adds.

Years later, Locorriere began contemplating returning the songs to their original form, prompted by a call from Universal Music asking him to compile a two-disc album of Dr Hook hits.

"I had to take a walk through that whole body of work to pick 40 tracks, and that hit home for me. When the album came out and it went top 10, and I started getting emails and doing radio stuff. It was sort of like, this stuff matters, it really does."

But make no mistake, says Locorriere, this isn't about trying to pretend everyone's back in the 70s. It's about doing justice to some of the decade's most recognisable tunes.

"I'm not presenting the original band. You can't hold back the tides of time. You can't change the way people look. Nobody wants to see a bunch of old guys in bell bottoms," he laughs. "If you ask me what Dr Hook means to me, I would tell you that in the old days it meant a bunch of good friends travelling around the world together, getting some lucky breaks, having big hits and behaving like a pack of chimpanzees having a wonderful time. Today, Dr Hook is a sound. I can't bring people back, but I can go out with a band and do these songs the way people want to hear them."

The Dennis Locorriere presents Dr Hook Timeless tour kicks off at the Aotea Centre in Auckland on April 29 and ends in Christchurch at Isaac Theatre Royal on May 10.