By Gary Bennett
This article appears in the Frederick News Post’s “72 Hours” magazine, April 13, 2023.
Frederick welcomes another icon of ‘70s classic rock to the Weinberg Center when Three Dog Night visits on Sunday, April 16 at 6 pm. Along with recent visits from Gordon Lightfoot, The Temptations, Spinners and America, an evening of music from Three Dog Night promises to take we aging baby boomers back to our teens and 20s. Tickets are still available at https://weinbergcenter.org/.
Thinking back to the ‘70s, it seems that Three Dog Night was always on the radio. Their music didn’t have the hard-diving focus of other ‘70s rock bands like The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Black Sabbath or even Kiss. And they sure didn’t have the thoughtful lyrics and musicality of The Eagles, The Who, Chicago or Queen. They fit somewhere in the pleasant middle with other pop-oriented bands like The Guess Who and Doobie Brothers.
They were certainly commercially successful. From 1969 to 1974 they racked up 21 Billboard top 40 hits including three number ones. No other group was as successful during that span. If you came of age in the ‘70s and listened to the radio at all, chances are very good you will recognize most of Three Dog Night’s hits. Among the favorites sure to be played on April 16 are the three number ones: Mama Told Me Not to Come (#1 in 1970), Joy to the World (#1 in 1971) and Black and White (#1 in 1972).
Mama Told Me Not to Come tells the funny story of the strangest party “there could ever be.” Joy to the World is a simple song espousing the pure joy of being alive. It is known for its strange opening line “Jeremiah was a bullfrog.” Black and White is a socially-responsible song celebrating the end of racial segregation in schools.
Other top hits include my personal favorite Shambala (#3 in 1973), which uses a solid groove to tell the story of a mystical place where love and kindness abound, The Show Must Go On (#3 in 1974), An Old Fashioned Love Song (#4 in 1971), Easy to be Hard (#4 in 1969), One (#5 in 1969), Never Been to Spain (#5 in 1971), Liar (#7 in 1971) and Eli’s Coming (#10 in 1969).
One of the main appeals of Three Dog Night is that each of their songs sound so different. This is because, like the Beatles before them, they decided to feature all three lead singers pretty much equally among their songs. Lead singers Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron and Cory Wells (also the founders of Three Dog Night) had three very different voices and singing styles. Today, only Hutton remains. In 1985, Negron suffered a relapse into drug addiction and was fired from the group. Wells died in 2015 at age 74.
Unlike most of the rock bands of the ‘70s, Three Dog Night did not write their own songs. They left that work to others. This was not unusual in the music business prior to the arrival of the Beatles in the ‘60s. Instead, Three Dog Night became masters at picking out songs that were right for them and commercially appealing. They were responsible for introducing the world to many up and coming songwriters that are well known today: Randy Newman (Mama Told Me Not to Come), Paul Williams (An Old Fashioned Love Song), and Hoyt Axton (Joy to the World, Never Been to Spain).
There has always been some controversy on what Three Dog Night’s name actually means. Some believe Danny Hutton’s girlfriend suggested the name after reading about aboriginal Australians who on particularly cold nights slept with three dogs to keep warm instead of one or two. An arranger at Warner Brothers disputes this and says he came up with the name. Either way, the phrase has become part of the American lexicon to describe an especially cold night.
Hopefully, Danny Hutton will clear this up once and for all when he visits Frederick on April 6.