Don Covay liked to call himself “a song physician” and his soulful prescription was taken up by the Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, Gladys Knight and Wilson Pickett, all of whom recorded his songs. A mild-mannered, affable man with a winning smile, he was dubbed “Pretty Boy” by Little Richard. He was also blessed with a keen eye for a money-spinning gimmick: Covay was one of the prime movers in the plethora of new dance crazes that emerged in the early 1960s — the pony, the boomerang, the fat man, and the sookie-sookie were all his creations and he wrote the novelty songs that introduced them to the dancefloor. It was his deep soul style, though, that earned him critical acclaim and he went on to