Here is a band from 1968 through 1975 that gave us over twenty-one solid hits, yet for some reason, all of the classic radio stations never play their music. Heck, even I forgot these guys, and I played every one of their songs and albums literally thousands of times in my years as a disk jockey.
Starting out as a three-man all vocalist band of Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron, and Cory Wells, they landed a recording contract with Dunhill Records by the name of Redwood. Â They changed their name after Danny Hutton’s girl friend read a magazine article about eskimos who rated how cold the night was by the number of sled dogs you needed to sleep with. Â (A variation of the story had it being Indigenous Australians and Dingos, but I got the actual story from Danny himself during a radio interiew)
Three Dog Night had 14 gold albums in their career, and are still performing on reunion tours even now.
I am going to post SEVERAL of their hits here.
Their first hit was a song called “One”, written by Harry Nilsson:
One
One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
It’s the loneliest number since the number oneNo is the saddest experience you’ll ever know
Yes, it’s the saddest experience you’ll ever know
`Cause one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
One is the loneliest number, worse than twoIt’s just no good anymore since she went away
Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterdayOne is the loneliest, number one is the loneliest
Number one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
One is the loneliest, one is the loneliest
One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
It’s just no good anymore since she went away
(Number) One is the loneliest
(Number) One is the loneliest
(Number) One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
(Number) One is the loneliest
(Number) One is the loneliest
(Number) One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
January 13th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Nice post! You are right, the “classic” rock stations really don’t give this band their due. Oh well, Three Dog Night’s career has been one of no respect.
How about a band with 3 lead singers and a hard driving unique sound. Oh they don’t write their own music? Then what good are they? I’m talking about The Supremes. Nobody ever seemed to care that they didn’t write thier own stuff. As a mtter of fact, they had songwriters on the Motown payrol whose only job was to write songs for them!
At least with Three Dog Night they had the musical “ears” to select artists that were unknown, but who would ultimately make it big due to their talent: Paul Williams, Leo Sayer, Harry Niilson, Hoyt Axton. Laura Nyro.
Most people know these guys from their numerous hits. As a long time fan I can tell you some of their album stuff is far better. These guys were superb! Thanks for the blog.