Three Dog Night: "Joy To The World" for "An Old Fashioned Love Song"
Written: Jun 15 '03 (Updated Nov 22 '07)
Product Rating:
Pros: Inexpensive 12-track collection featuring 11 Top 10 hits.
Cons: Weak CD booklet.
The Bottom Line: Hits:"Joy To The World,""One,""Black & White,""An Old Fashioned Love Song,""Eli's Coming,""Mama Told Me (Not To Come),""Liar,""Never Been To Spain," more...
Don_Krider's Full Review: 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: T...
Three Dog Night scored 21 consecutive Top 40 pop hits (every single they placed in the Billboard Hot 100 also went Top 40, an amazing achievement) in Billboard magazine between 1969 and 1975, including eleven Top 10 singles, three of which went to # 1 on the charts.
On "20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection --- The Best Of Three Dog Night" from MCA Records, you get 12 of those hit tracks, including all 11 of their Top 10 hits.
The CD:
Part of MCA's "20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection" series (acts with their own CDs in the series include The Shangri-Las, The Grass Roots, The Who, Lesley Gore and Dusty Springfield, among others), the recordings have been taken from the original master tapes and reproduced with a crisp, clean sound.
The tracks (a soundtrack of the late '60s and early '70s in so many ways): "Joy To The World," "Shambala," "One," "Black & White," "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)," "An Old Fashioned Love Song," "Never Been To Spain," "Liar," "Eli's Coming," "Easy To Be Hard," "Celebrate" and "The Show Must Go On."
The CD booklet: A short-three page biography (by Mike Rogogna) is the highlight of an eight-page CD booklet, illustrated with color photographs and including chart information on the singles appearing on the CD (one entry is incorrect: "Eli's Coming" is listed as first charting in Billboard on October 25, 1967 when it actually first charted on that date two years later in 1969, and the title of "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)" is incorrectly listed as "Mama Told Me Not To Come").
The CD booklet is also missing the lyrics to any of the tunes, a major flaw in my opinion.
The band:
The seven-piece outfit with three lead vocalists (Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron and Cory Wells) featured six white males (Hutton, Negron, Wells, guitarist Michael Allsup, keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon and bassist Joe Schermie) and an African-American male (drummer Floyd Sneed). The racial integration of the group was pretty unique at the time.
Their album tracks included material by then-unknown songwriters such as Elton John, Hoyt Axton (trivia buffs: Hoyt's mother, Mae Boren Axton, co-wrote Elvis Presley's first hit, "Heartbreak Hotel"), Laura Nyro, Paul Williams, Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman and Leo Sayer, among others, whose careers took off when Three Dog Night scored with their songs.
The band was formed in Southern California in 1968 by Danny Hutton (from Ireland), Chuck Negron (from the Bronx in New York) and Cory Wells (from Buffalo, New York). They played around with different names for the band before becoming Three Dog Night.
According to the CD booklet, "Three Dog Night" is "an Australian expression referring to it being so cold that, as one would sleep beside a dog for warmth, in this case, one would need three."
They recorded a couple of demonstration records for Brother Records, The Beach Boys' personal label, but when they found that Beach Boys' leader Brian Wilson wouldn't be available to produce an entire album for them, they struck out to find a new label.
Already a major concert draw without a recording deal, the band became the subject of a bidding war among all the major record labels, but it was ABC-Dunhill Records that won the contract.
Three Dog Night scored quickly with the single "Try A Little Tenderness" (not in this collection) which reached # 29 in early 1969, followed by 20 more consecutive Top 40 hits by 1975. Not only did 19 of those singles also go Top 20 on the charts, but 11 of the tunes went Top 10 and three rose to # 1 ("Mama Told Me Not To Come" in 1970, "Joy To The World" in 1971 and "Black & White" in 1972).
According to Billboard magazine, seven of the singles earned Gold Record Awards for sales of over a million copies each in the United States (these days, singles can earn the same award for selling half that amount).
On the album charts, the band scored 12 straight Gold Record Awards for its albums between 1969 and 1976 ("Coming Down Your Way" in 1975 and "American Pastime" in 1976 failed to sell the required 500,000 album units to earn the award, however).
They never had a # 1 album in the United States, but five of their albums went Top 10 and 14 long players hit the Top 200 Album chart in Billboard. Thirteen of those albums hit the top half of the Top 200 Album chart --- their first 12 albums all made the Top 30 in 1969-74.
Chart impact of those albums was greater than their chart rankings, too: five of the albums were each on the charts for more than a year, with "Suitable For Framing" in 1969 spending 74 weeks on the Billboard chart (their "Captured Live At The Forum," also released in 1969, was a close second in chart residency with 72 weeks on the chart).
Worldwide, the act has sold more than 50 million albums and singles over the years. The group reunited in 1981 and continues to tour (with founding members Hutton, Wells, Allsup and Greenspoon in the current six-man lineup; Negron, the third lead singer, is a solo act these days).
The best tracks:
"One":
Harry Nilsson (who scored a # 1 hit as a singer with his cover of Badfinger's "Without You" in 1971-72) wrote what I think is one of the greatest songs about loneliness ever written , a little tune called "One."
Three Dog Night scored their first Top 10 hit with "One" in 1969, rising to # 5 on the charts and earning them their first Gold single award.
Opening with a gently played piano, the song builds as frantic fingers slide off guitar lightning bolts and the rhythm section kicks in with some prime drumming, all as the lead singer sounds more and more frantic about his sad place in life --- he sounds like he wants out of the prison of loneliness and you wish you had the key to the prison door to give to him as he pleads to the listener for his release:
"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 one / no, is the saddest experience you'll ever know / yes, it's the saddest you'll ever know / 'cause one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do..."
"Easy To Be Hard":
Written by Galt McDermot, James Rado and Gerome Ragni, "Easy To Be Hard" took the band to # 4 in 1969.
It's another tune that begins gently, then grows with a bit of anger in the singer's voice as injustices in the world get more frustrating, with lyrics as true in the explosive 1960s as they are today:
"How can people be so heartless / how can people be so cruel / easy to be hard, easy to be cold / how can people have no feelings / how can they ignore their friends / easy to be proud, easy to say no / especially people who care about strangers / who care about evil and social injustice / do you care only about bleeding crowds / how about a needing friend, I need a friend..."
"Eli's Coming":
Their third Top 10 hit in a row from 1969, Three Dog Night rose to # 10 with Laura Nyro's "Eli's Coming." The tune is a rocking, gospel-spirited, honky tonk piano-laden number warning girls to stay away from a certian guy:
"Eli's comin' / well you better hide your heart, your loving heart / Eli's a-comin' and the cards say, 'a broken heart'..."
"Celebrate":
The only non-Top 10 hit in the this collection, "Celebrate" was written by Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon. If Bonner and Gordon are a familiar-sounding team, well, they also wrote songs recorded by Petula Clark, Bobby Darin, The Righteous Brothers and Gary Lewis, but they are best remembered for writing two Top 5 hits for The Turtles, "Happy Together" and "She'd Rather Be With Me."
On "Celebrate," Three Dog Night sings the tune as an anthem for a new generation, again full of the spiritual energy and again following the mellow ballad-turns-into-uptempo rocker pattern:
"...celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music..."
"Mama Told Me (Not To Come)":
Randy Newman, always wacky as a singer-songwriter (an Oscar-winner who has scored the music for numerous films, including "Toy Story"; an arrange, including the arrangement of Peggy Lee's # 11 hit from 1969, "Is That All There Is?"; a songwriter (he co-wrote "Who gave You The Roses" for Bing Crosby in 1959 early in his long career) and a singer with hits of his own (such as "Short People," which hit # 2 in 1977), wrote the devilish "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)."
Lead singer Cory Wells, according to the SuperSeventies.Com website, fought long and hard to get the band to record the song --- nobody liked it but him.
When they finally recorded the "coming of age" rocker, the band scored its first # 1 single (two weeks in the top spot during a 15-week run), earned its second Gold Record Award for a singler (eventually passing the three million units sold mark), and found Newman calling the Cory to thank him for recording the tune ("Cory, thanks for putting my kids through college," Newman told him):
"Want some whiskey in your water? / Sugar in your tea? / What's all these crazy questions they're asking me? / This is the craziest party that could ever be / don't turn on the lights 'cause I don't wanna see / mama told me not to come / mama told me not to come / she said, 'That ain't the way to have fun, son'..."
"Joy To the World":
The late Hoyt Axton (an actor of sorts in movies like "Gremlins" and "The Black Stallion," whose film debut was in an episode of "Bonanza" in 1965)) was an accomplished songwriter already when Three Dog Night recorded his "Joy To The World." Among the artists who have recorded his tunes: Steppenwolf ("The Pusher," "Snowblind Friend"), The Kingston Trio ("Greenback Dollar") and Ringo Starr ("The No No Song").
Three Dog Night's "Joy To The World" was a monster single, hitting # 1 for six straight weeks in 1971 (out of 17 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100). It had multi-generational appeal in its uptempo, Mitch Miller-style chorus of "joy to the world, all the boys and girls" and an understated background bass vocal of "oh, I wanna tell you..."
Essentially the radio anthem of 1971 with two million certified radio airplays to date (according to BMI.Com), the band sang this million-seller:
"Jeremiah was a bull frog / was a good friend of mine / I never understood a single word he said / but I helped him drink his wine / and he always had some mighty fine wine / singin' / joy to the world / all the boys and girls, now / joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea / joy to you and me..."
"Liar":
Russ Ballard (who formed the band called Argent (with Rod Argent, formerly of The Zombies), scoring the # 5 hit "Hold Your Head Up" in 1972) has written tunes recorded by Kiss ("New York Groove," "God Gave Rock & Roll To You" (originally an Argent track)), America ("You Can Do Magic," "The Border") and Rainbow ("Since You've Been Gone"), among others.
Ballard's "Liar," as recorded by Three Dog Night for a # 7 hit in 1971, features a great hard rock guitar riff, followed by a chorus that's almost screamed of "liar, liar." As rock tunes go, this one's a classic about a guy who believes in the wrong girlfriend:
"I won't ever leave while you want me to stay / nothing you could do would turn me away / hanging on every word / believing the things I heard / being a fool / you've taken my life, so take my soul / that's what you said and I believed it all / ... / ain't that what you said? / liar, liar, liar..."
"An Old Fashioned Love Song":
Some-time actor ("Smokey And The Bandit") Paul Williams scored his biggest hit as a songwriter with "An Old Fashioned Love Song," a very sweet, "old fashioned" love ballad complete with Three Dog Night's trademark anthemic chorus-style:
"...just an old fashioned love song playin' on the radio / one I'm sure they wrote for you and me / just an old fashioned love song / comin' down in 3-part harmony..."
"An Old Fashioned Love Song" became yet another million-seller for the group, peaking at # 4 in 1971.
"Never Been To Spain":
Hoyt Axton struck again in 1971, on the heels of his songwriting success with "Joy To The World," with "Never Been To Spain," which would peak at # 5 in early 1972.
It's an uptempo ballad full of life's longings, and of accepting life as it is, whether you've experienced everything or not, because "what does it matter?":
"Well, I never been to Spain / but I kinda like the music / say the ladies are insane there / and they sure know how to use it / ... / well I never been to England / but I kinda like The Beatles / well, I headed for Las Vegas / only made it out to Needles / ... / well, I never been to heaven / but I been to Oklahoma / well, they tell me I was born there / but I really don't remember / In Oklahoma, not Arizona / what does it matter?..."
"Black & White":
Written by David Arkin and Earl Robinson, "Black & White" tackled racial differences in its lyrics while presenting itself as a sweet, without confrontation, uptempo children's sing-a-long tune, trapping its audience amid its musical innocence with its message of racial harmony:
"The ink is black / the page is white / together we learn to read and write / the child is black / the child is white / the whole world looks upon the sight / the beautiful sight..."
Recommendation:
The album also features the group's # 3 hit from 1973, a cover of B. W. Stevenson's "Shambala," and the band's final Top 10 hit, a cover of Leo Sayer's "The Show Must Go On" (produced by Raspberries' producer Jimmy "wall-of-sound" Ienner), which hit # 4 in 1974.
Fans of classic 1960s/1970s Top 40 radio will love this introduction to the band. It's an inexpensive (usually less than $13 at retail outlets, with most stores selling it for less than $10 as a price point item) release that contains all eleven of the band's Top 10 hits, though I would have liked the collection better if it included their Top 20 hit from 1973, "Pieces Of April," a personal favorite.
Makes a fine gift for yourself or that special someone, with songs that appeal to several generations (I still hear kids singing "Joy To The World" these days, more than three decades after its release, for instance).
The CD booklet is the album's one weakness, but it's the music that matters --- the fresh sound of these remastered tracks is crisp and clear. Overall, a very enjoyable listen whether you're reading the paper, hanging with friends or just driving around (hopefully with the speakers blaring and the windows down so all can hear).
On the web:
Official Three Dog Night site --- the website of the current touring lineup of the band: http://www.threedognight.com/
Official Chuck Negron website (one of the three original lead singers, he is no longer with the band): http://www.negron.com/
Official Three Dog Night Fan Club: http://www.threedognight.com/fan.html
Official Michael Allsup website (band member): http://www.michaelallsup.com/
Official Hoyt Axton website (composer of "Joy To The World" and "Never Been To Spain"): http://www.sixcats.com/axton/hoytbio.htm
Official Randy Newman website (composer of "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)"): http://www.randynewman.com/
Product DetailsOriginal Title:20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Three Dog NightCondition: NEWFormat: CDArtist: Three Dog N...More at iNetVideo.com
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