I Just Love Three Dog Night's Greatest Hits

That's true - it'd be hard for a contemporary rock act to rely so heavily on outside-penned material without being gunned down by accusations of phoniness. They're a reminder that the Monkees weren't actually doomed by their reliance on (outstanding) songwriters but by their own discomfort with the idea. If they'd been cool to just roll on with it, maybe some of those TDN hits would have actually been Monkees tracks!

If I had to point to a current band, it'd probably be somebody like The New Pornographers, and even then mainly because they make a strong pull from songwriters that TDN recorded.

xpost--Intersting point. Davy Jones claimed that he'd been pushing for Paul Williams songs back in '67-8, but was only able to land "Someday Man", which flopped in '69. Lesley Gore had a similar thing happen w/Laura Nyro--when she finally was able to record "Wedding Bell Blues", she got crushed on the charts by The Fifth Dimension.

Heard "Black and White" on the AM heading downtown tonight. That's probably the simpiest hit they had, and even that holds up reasonably well.

I'm not completely kidding about them being in the HOF. I was thinking about them in comparison to the Pretenders or the Police. I know the latter two had the Stamp of Importance in their day, but are they still viewed that way? Three Dog Night--the Dog--had many more hits. (I counted.) Generational bias here.

Not only that, when people start threads about Three Dog Night, they put them on ILE instead of ILM so that the whole world can share the love.

ELI'S COMING, SO HIDE YOUR HEART.

Their only serious misstep I think is the cover of "One" which totally misses the one-ness of it...though clearly it worked out just fine for them.

...NUMBER!

Yes, that's Lily Tomlin as the fortune teller (this was from the Music Scene, of which she was a cast member prior to joining Laugh-In)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcVrZwVSORA

http://i.minus.com/i81URoWpHkQ24.gif

challop: 3DN version of "One" > Nilsson version of "One"

conventional-op for me.... 3DN's "One" absurdly overwrought. NUMBUH!!!!

But i like it anyway if only for pointing more attention Nilsson's way. Although several prominent acts were covering his songs by this point, his own records weren't selling beans at this point.

Holy crap, that video! Fantastic stuff.

Production so tight on so many of these songs

3DN was all about studio production and a tight pop sound. They were never about greatness, depth or reach.

This reminds me that the first rock band I ever saw live was Bruce Laing (vocals), Chris Karolidis (guitar), Scott Reis (guitar), and Norm Allen (drums), who played at our school talent show in 1971 when I was in grade 4. They must have had a name, but I've forgotten it--let's call them the Fields of Nephilim for now. They played "Joy to the World," and they had reach, depth, and greatness--they were godlike.

First arena rock show I saw WAS Three Dog Night. I'm guessing 1972.

Nice--probably more of a rock show than mine, which took place in the school gym. (My other first show was the Guess Who at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium, a year after yours I think.)

their original drummer was sick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eecQeAErJ8Q

And what a great name: Floyd Sneed!

Man, "Never Been To Spain" will never be dislodged from my brain. WOAH LAWWD!

Could be my favorite 3DN. "I've never been to Heaven, but I've been to Oklahoma" can work on so many different levels.

Even my blue-collar WWII-veteran grandpa liked these guys (owned Naturally and Golden Bisquits)

pplains OTM, it is a killer lyric. Cheers to Hoyt Axton.

Weird - my bookmark to this thread keeps not working and refusing itself. I suspect an anti-Dog conspiracy.

Elvis knew what was up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdYYcMH4dmw

Thread's relocation from "I Love Everything" presumably to blame for bookmark-fail? xpost

man, elvis pretty much straight ripping 3DN's whole arrangement/performance, just a few details changed here and there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87b5dLN7r4o

(Couldn't find the one with them and James Brown, which is apparently Episode 1.17)

It was just last week that I was thinking of all the things I still hoped to see one day, and Gore Vidal and Hugh Hefner strolling into the mosh pit of a Three Dog Night performance topped the list.

Was what is on the Cowsills thread also on your list?

Took a look--Tony Hendra, right? (Weren't the Cowsills too young to get inside the Mansion?)

So one would think

that clip is awesome, love how shambling and kinda lost the whole jam session is. And the silhouettes! Never heard of Playboy After Dark before, was it always like that?

"Nobody" getting immediately added to my "woolly rock" playlist in any case.

As far as I know it was always like that. Hit bands of the day side by side with toupeed Vegas comedians trying to hide their flop sweat, along with others you might expect on such a show.

One episode has Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate discussing violence in film!

There's a bar band playing "Never Been To Spain" not 100 ft. from me at this outdoor shopping mall. (Now they're doing "Santeria").

Wow, great thread! What IS in that bio-book? With all of those cool cats singing, must be a lot of tales! They are ace, but I can't imagine anything like that "going down" now. In the early 70's people were burned out from all of the sixties drama, that's why we had stuff like that. Also AM radio!

I hear "Never Been to Spain" quite a bit on classic rock radio...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiKcd7yPLdU

your basic fake live performance with bad sound quality but soooo worth it IMO for the eye contact between the two "we have nothing to do on this song" members, they're seriously about to crack up the whole time, like "haha nice CLAPPING there, steve!" "can you fucking believe this?"

RIP Cory Wells

Newman’s “Mama Told Me (Not to Come)” became one of the group's biggest hits, selling more than a million copies. Newman had recorded the song about a naive man’s introduction to L.A.’s wild ’60s music scene a few years earlier, with less success.

Wells, who sang the lead, was fond of telling the story of a phone call he later received from Newman. “He said, ‘I just want to thank you for putting my kids through college.’ Then he hung up.

did ILX suddenly cancel all youtube embeds? just flipped back through this thread and it's sort of incoherent without those showing up...

man what a rockin', poppin', pop-rock band. i sometimes wish their recordings could be like, ten percent less hammy and music-hall-y (i love their "mama told me not to come" but it'd probably be better if cory wells weren't putting on SUCH a comical vocal affectation)... but they're still awesome.

Today's discovery among their second-tier singles: "Family of Man" ruuuuuuules. Late-hippie good-time fuzzy crunch, like TDN are reaching back to the Beatles' "It's All Too Much" by way of early Sly & the Family Stone.

They've definitely got a bit too much David Clayton-Thomas in them at times. My favourite lesser-known single is "Out in the Country," also "Liar," although that's probably better known. Just found out recently they covered Neil Young's "The Loner" on their debut album. In other TDN news, the Jays' Joe Biagini has switched his walk-on music from "One" to Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger." Bad trade, but it does suggest he's a big Magnolia fan, or ought to be.

"Liar" is so great, deserves to be much better-known. Feel like if it was by Steppenwolf or somebody like that it'd probably have a few more people repping for it.

XP I think alot of the David Clayton-Thomas comes from Danny Hutton. For the longest time I used to think a couple of his TDN hits--"Celebrate" and "Black and White"--actually were Blood, Sweat & Tears, and I imagine a lot of people genuinely think the former is, given how closely TDN apes their style on it.

"Liar" is great too. It should at least skate by on more adventurous Classic Rock playlists.

Also: this probably shouldn't go here, but I've been groovin' on Santana lately, and was amazed that this hit actually wasn't either TDN or BST:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wwfUEM3BWU

"Everybody's Everything", from Santana 3.

The David Clayton-Thomas Syndrome (designated as such in The American Journal of Medicine, Vol. 25, Issue 3, I believe) was the scourge of white rock bands in the early '70s. Most egregious example: the Ides of March's "Vehicle."

Never knew of Clayton-Thomas by name before but that connection makes a lottttt of sense. The bombastic ham delivery also reminds me of Gary Puckett, and some of Neil Diamond's stuff (Cracklin' Rosie, I Am I Said) though he's sanded down some of the worst affectations. Jim Morrison also probably bears some responsibility. Apparently this was a style of singing that really landed with middle-of-the-road top 40 listeners circa 1967-1971, but now it feels like maybe the biggest barrier to new audiences getting into these songs. OTOH I played my friend a bunch of TDN last night and she was digging it, even the more OTT stuff (tho I didn't go as far as "The Show Must Go On" - surely their worst single by some distance?).

This thread may also be relevant: covers that folk/rock/soul song-interpreters of the '60s and '70s would have on their records

Their cover of "Try a Little Tenderness," closely modeled on Redding's, also gives some clue to what they *thought* they were getting at.

"Cracklin' Rosie"'s pretty light on its feet, I'd say, but you're right, Neil's overcome with DCTS on "I Am...I Said" and "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" and probably other songs I don't know. Morrison's a good starting point. Chicago, obviously, on something like "Make Me Smile," even though I like them and I like that song. Rare Earth--advanced DCTS.

SOOOOOO hard
FAM'ly of MAN
SOOOOO hard
DOO DOO DOOOOO

I knew that would be you.

Last year I was *this* close to buying a used copy of Chuck Negron’s autobio. Guy knew how to party I guess.

Ooh, that concert looks great, bookmarking to watch later. TDN were my first arena rock concert, right about this time.

haha i'm a simple man

I probably mentioned it on the Fargo thread, but "Shambala" was used really well in S2, just the daughter driving and singing along with it over the radio.

Picking up right where I left off...I was comparing notes with a friend today on how well they've been used in films and on TV.

"Mama Told Me Not to Come," Boogie Nights - Jack Horner's pool party. A+
"Shambala," Fargo - As described above. A
"Easy to Be Hard," Zodiac - A song I never liked growing up, but in Zodiac--opening scene, 4th of July fireworks--it's perfect. A
"One," Magnolia - I don't remember particulars (a montage of different characters?), but I recall it being used effectively. A-
"Joy to the World," The Big Chill - So-so on the film, but I liked this at the end. A-

Anything else?

I think this clip may have been put together for a PTA series that played in Toronto a couple of years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwpzwqmJPe0

I thought I'd seen every PTA film, but I'm drawing a blank on the black-and-white stuff there...is that one of Magnolia's "this happened" flashbacks?

out in the country is the one i'm loving these days

Beat Club Jam...Chuck Negron offstage somewhere doing drugs and/or breaking his penis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4l6FU74pUY

Floyd Sneed's got one of oh-so-'70s clear drum kits. Would be kinda cool to have a power trio with one of those and two Ampeg Dan Armstrongs.

oops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aAlOysB8z4

u gotta admit that yelling "jeremiah was a bullfrog" is just a gloriously deranged way to start a song

— lil jon lovitz (autumn version 🦃🍂) (@liljonlovitz) November 21, 2021

Missed this sad news in January - Floyd Sneed passed away at 80:

https://bestclassicbands.com/floyd-sneed-obituary-three-dog-night-drummer-1-29-23/

Spending time with the Dog and this thread over the past decade has really gotten me to pay attention to his drumming. Truly great imho, deserves to be much more in the conversation. Not a one of their hits would have had half the energy and momentum with somebody else at the kit. "Family of Man," my big obsession of late, is as good as proof of that as you could ask for.

Just heard "Liar" on an archival American Top 40 (8-14-71) on Sirius XM--Such a banger and maybe the best production they ever got.

One of my speculative picks for the final Mad Men song!

That would have been wild.

"Indian Reservation" is also in this countdown, and it could totally pass for a more serious 3DN song/recording ala "Liar" or "Out In The Country".

Good(Three Dog)Night Chuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGtqZ8hHX3s

On the road to Shambala--sorry to hear.

you ever play that game where you try to out-funny each other by adding the phrase "in my pants" to song titles?
"mama told me not to come" is the all time winner.

i guess "easy to be hard" is pretty good too

"Celebrate", "Joy To The World", and "Liar" too.

...and "Eli's Comin'" of course

Never Been To Spain!

Talking about this on FB, I realized that Three Dog Night have a song in:

1) probably my favourite film of the '90s ("Mama Told Me" in Boogie Nights);

2) definitely my favourite film of the '00s ("Easy to Be Hard" in Zodiac);

3) my favourite single season of an omnibus--? whatever you call a series where each season is a different cast/story than the others--TV series ("Shambala" in S2 of Fargo)

And each one is used memorably. They're not quite Donovan in the soundtrack department, but they're up there.

I can’t believe I never posted to this thread.

but you kinda like the Beatles.

Honest to god--wish I had video--I had a last-minute supply/substitute for grade 1 today, the school in my town, and they were all dancing on the carpet (they asked if they could) to "Joy to the World." I played a YouTube clip with lyrics--was pretty sure there'd be no inquiries about certain lyrics.

<3 <3

“Black and White” is actually my favorite song by these guys. Yes, based on the Greyhound version, but they fricking nailed it. It’s a fascinating record, pretty much all repetition.

Curiously a number one hit in South Africa during apartheid.