Dr Hook and the Medicine Show paid tribute to the witch queen of New Orleans on a song by Shel Silverstein on their debut album.

When I first heard that tearjerker Sylvia’s Mother in 1972, I’m sure I had no idea it was written by a children’s author who wasn’t even in the band. I may even have thought Dr Hook was a real doctor (or a pirate-turned-medic).

Turns out Shel Silverstein wrote all but one of the tracks on their debut album, including this tribute to a notorious voodoo practitioner of the early 19th century.

Marie Laveau was the real-life witch queen of New Orleans, though she lived in the French Quarter rather than (as the song suggests) in a swamp, inside the hollow log of a black tree, with a one-eyed snake and a three-legged dog.

History also fails to record whether she really had “a black cat tooth and a mojo bone” (whatever that is) but in all other respects she was a very real Creole character practising voodoo in the early 19th century, blending Roman Catholicism with elements of Native American and African spiritualism.

The nucleus of Dr Hook first formed in nearby Mobile, Alabama, in the mid-’60s – when George Cummings, Ray Sawyer (the one in the cowboy hat with an eye patch) and Billy Francis – began playing as Chocolate Papers.

Moving to New Jersey, they recruited Dennis Locorriere as co-lead vocalist with Sawyer, who wore the patch after losing an eye in a car crash, and changed their name; initially to the long-winded Dr Hook And The Medicine Show: Tonic For The Soul.

Originally playing country music in Jersey bars, they got lucky when their demos were sent to a film producer and they were invited to appear in the film – Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me.

In the movie they played a couple of songs penned by Silverstein, earning them the attention of Clive Davis at CBS, who signed them up – and the partnership continued when he wrote the songs for their self-titled debut album.

This song (changing the spelling to Lavaux) was sung by Sawyer, rather than Lacorriere who had sung Sylvia’s Mother. It was not​ a single but a live version by Bobby Bare became a country chart-topper in 1974.

A year later Dr Hook abbreviated their name and became even more successful after switching styles to what might be called disco ballads, with hits like Sexy Eyes, A Little Bit More and When You’re In Love With A Beautiful Woman.