I Just Love Three Dog Night's Greatest Hits

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.

At least one of Hamilton, Joe Frank, or Reynolds seems to have also been a sufferer. Three Dog Night... man, they have such a fascinating sound. Their rockier numbers genuinely rock, fuzzed-out, great rhythm section, and they often chose kind of weird material for hit singles ("Never Been To Spain" is just three verses, no chorus, and then those same three verses again but louder!), but the vocals always give the sense that the performer is giving a big, wide Vegas entertainer's smile for the parents watching this in the back row.

Also, quoth Wiki:

Three Dog Night's original recordings were released by ABC Dunhill Records (except for 1983's It's A Jungle). In 1973, executives at ABC Dunhill (Jay Lasker is usually blamed) decided to discard all of their multi-track recordings and mono masters to save storage space in a cost-cutting measure. [1] As a result, all re-issues on CD have been remastered using album masters (sometimes second or third generation tape) which often results in an inferior sound when compared to other catalogs of the era.

Is this significant? Is it something I can hear in the recordings? I don't think anything I've heard by them sounds bad but there is certainly some kind of quality to the recordings that sounds, idk, different? Is it just that they've been spared terrible late 80s CD remasters....?

I don't know. The only thing I have is their greatest hits on vinyl (used to have Harmony on 8-track! we listened to it, and the Guess Who's Greatest Hits, on the way to Florida in 1972). I've never given any thought to sound quality.

One thing they had was excellent taste in songwriters. First LP: Harry Nilsson, Lennon & McCartney, Danny Whitten, Randy Newman, Tim Hardin, Neil Young. Second: Dave Mason, Elton John & Bernie Taupin, Sam Cooke, Laura Nyro. Third (studio): Newman again (twice), Roger Nichols & Paul Williams, Nyro again, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil. Fourth: Jesse Colin Young, Hoyt Axton. Fifth: Axton, Williams, Stevie Wonder & Syreeta Wright, Joni Mitchell, Jerry Miller & Don Stevenson (Moby Grape). I'm sure I missed some great lesser-known names, too. That's an amazing five-LP run.

And one thing anyone younger than 40 won't know is how really, really big they were around the decade changeover. After the Beatles, the Jackson 5, CCR, and maybe the Carpenters, they might have been the biggest Top 40 group for '70-72. (I'd have to check that...Elton was taking off, there was the Guess Who, maybe a handful of other contenders too.)

(The Beatles, as you may have heard, called it quits in '70.)

Also on the list of material: they gave John Hiatt his career by covering "Sure As I'm Sitting Here." He's not in the same league as those others, but he's penned a few other hits including "Thing Called Love."

TDN had a very very dense run of hits from '69 to '75: they released twenty-one singles, every single one made the top 40, eleven top-tenners, three #1s. CCR weren't even as reliable! The Carpenters and the Jacksons are closer matches with three #1s and more near-misses than TDN, but not quite as many hits overall, and capable of releasing things that people didn't send up the charts. Not saying TDN were "bigger" than those bands, I wasn't there and it seems clear enough that all three made a bigger impact on the culture, but I get the sense that the Dog, like the Carpenters, had some kind of crossover power that tells us something about the state of the culture beyond the counter- part of the culture in that moment.

In the back of the Joel Whitburn pop singles book I've got from the mid-'80s, he's got them 14th for the '70s. But all the people ahead of them (except for the Carpenters) had hits throughout the decade: Elton, Chicago, Bee Gees, etc. If you made the cut-off '75, at which point they're literally finished, I think you're right, they'd be top two or three.

For anyone wondering why this thread is very active suddenly, it's just a couple of guys with Dog Fever.

re:Sound Quality--I've got the two disc "Celebrate" set from '93, which I picked up used ages ago. It sounds quite good.* In the liner notes they mention something about using "Original Mono and Stereo Singles Masters for the First Time on CD", which had to be a great selling point to folks willing to shell out $30 or so bucks for TDN on CD in the mid-'90s.

*I'm not sure what the AMG guy is on about nothing being Remastered. Early MCA CDs were kind of notorious for having fairly high-quality mastering for the time, but also being quiet af. This set (and alot of '90s period MCA/Universal reissues) fixed the latter.

Also, looking at that tracklist I see another superb song they picked up: "You" a minor hit for Marvin Gaye just prior to "Grapevine" blowing up, and a big 'keep e'm on the floor' number at the local Soul Night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_2NpgHkyfY

Oh hey I forgot about "You"! I know it from Gaye's terribly packaged but amazingly stuffed Super Hits; listening to it right now in the context of this thread, it's almost screaming for a Three Dog Night cover. Listening to theirs, it's got a nice feel to it, nice that it's not a super-close copy and it naturally wanders into one of their rocked-out jam-type sections, but for once it'd be nice to hear them belting it out the vocals a little harder. I mean anybody's voice is going to sound kind of weak and thin next to Marvin Gaye's but still...

Youtube just recommended this to me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W3MGr19IyY

i think excerpts of that have crossed my path before, there's some really fun performing in there along with some seemingly adrift frontmanning. hutton's outfit and mic-cord manipulation make me wonder if they were hoping to catch a bit of the glam train. there's a real "please clap" moment before "Black and White" where they try and fail to get the crowd to sing along. "now i know you know the words to this one..."

the wikipedia for that song reveals that TDN had discovered it via the reggae group The Greyhounds' cover, which had gone to the top ten in the UK, so maybe that's why they figured it would go over well. also: apparently it was originally written by one Earl Robinson in 1954 and was explicitly about the Brown decision:

Their robes were black, Their heads were white,
The schoolhouse doors were closed so tight,
Nine judges all set down their names,
To end the years and years of shame.

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

You know I love the ladies
Love to have my fun
I'm a high-life flyer and a rainbow rider
A straight shootin' son-of-a-gun

The Sensitive Male, circa 1971.

Riding that rainbow in white bell-bottoms.

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".