Late Dr Hook singer's deep love of Sussex

Dr Hook co-frontman Dennis Locorriere, who has died aged 76, enjoyed a long and happy association with Sussex.

Dennis billed himself as “the true voice of Dr Hook” and took lead vocals on UK No 1 When You’re in Love With a Beautiful Woman. For many years he lived in the Worthing area.

His management company said he died on Saturday “after a long and courageous battle with kidney disease… Dennis faced his illness with remarkable strength, dignity, and resilience throughout, and remained deeply cherished by all who knew him.”

Locorriere was a frequent performer across West Sussex where he made his home.

“I love it in West Sussex,” Dennis told me in an interview back in 2009. “I have been going back and forth for years, and in the last couple of years I just thought I’d settle here.”

Dennis was always a lovely guy to speak to - friendly, chatty and effortlessly interesting. With plenty to say, he always said it beautifully.

And while he welcomed Obama as president and indeed used his overseas vote to back him, West Sussex was where Dennis was going to stay, he said – delighted that the Obama victory would perhaps make the world look at America in a new light.

“If the Republicans had got in, people would have just thought it was more of the same. At least this has confused people a bit! I want to be able to hope. It is good to hope. I just hope it doesn’t go wrong! That would be devastating...

“But I am not a political singer,” insisted Dennis. At the time he was on tour, mixing songs old and new and reviving some of the lost Dr Hook tracks.

Everyone knows tracks such as Sylvia’s Mother, A Little Bit More, When You’re In Love With A Beautiful Woman, but alongside them Dennis was offering some of the lesser-known album tracks – all part of Dr Hook’s rich history, inevitably carrying a big part of Hook with him.

Dr Hook amassed more than 60 gold and platinum records scoring number one hits in more than 42 countries – until Dennis moved to Nashville and disbanded the group.

“The Dr Hook thing is a double-edged sword. For me, it’s great to have that history, but if that were all I had! I was just a kid when I started. I joined when I was 19.

Everybody else in the band was in their 30s at that point. “Some of those guys were on their second go round. When I turned 33 or 34 I decided I wanted to do something else besides Hook – which is pretty much what the guys had decided when they took me in.”

It’s a history he revisited solo in the UK.

“It’s just me now, just me and my guitar, and I am so flattered that people come and see it. I love being out there alone.”

The big thrill was the rapport it enabled him to build up with the crowd: “The chat is a big part of it. It gets to be more and more part of it with time.

“Looking back over the years, there was a huge pressure to be the guy from Dr Hook. And then I realised that I can’t not be that guy. I feel really comfortable now with the way I am – and who I am. It’s the ultimate result of the one-child syndrome!”