LOS ANGELES (Intersound/Compendia
Music Group/ www.threedognight.com) - Three Dog Night enjoyed a streak of success that few groups in popular music ever achieved. Huge hit singles and albums and sold-out concert tours cemented Three Dog Night as the most popular American group of the late 1960s and first half of the 1970s. Between 1969 and 1975, Three Dog Night notched up an astonishing track record of 21 consecutive Top 40 hits, 18 straight Top 20 hits, 11 Top 10 hits, three No 1 pop singles, seven million-selling singles and 12 straight gold albums. Fans couldn't get enough of the band's soulful, radio-friendly blend of pop and rock.
Now, Three Dog Night is offering fresh, newly recorded interpretations of their classics with '35th Anniversary Hits Collection,' featuring the contributions of the world-famous London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Larry Baird. Intersound/Compendia Music Group will release '35th Anniversary Hits Collection' on October 19, 2004.
Original members Danny Hutton (vocals), Cory Wells (vocals), Michael Allsup (guitar) and Jimmy Greenspoon (keyboards) and longtime members Paul Kingery (bass, vocals) and Pat Bautz (drums) worked closely with the London Symphony Orchestra on reinvigorating Three Dog Night's beloved favorites while maintaining the integrity of what made them timeless hits in the first place. One reason for this is that '35th Anniversary Hits Collection' was produced by Richard Poloder, who produced the bulk of Three Dog Night's original recordings.
"Only in the '90s did it really come about that rock bands like the Moody Blues started playing seriously with orchestras. We wondered what our songs would sound like if we worked with an orchestra, so we decided to do it and it turned out to be a happy marriage," says Wells.
"I knew it was going to be great. Our agent told us it was going to be tough and expensive, but it was worth it. From inception to completion, it took over a year to do," Hutton says.
'35th Anniversary Hits Collection' includes 19 songs. Fifteen songs, including two new tracks, were recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra at the legendary Abbey Road studios. Four songs were recorded live with the Tennessee Symphony Orchestra.
The tracks are: "Mama Told Me Not To Come," "Black & White," "Shambala," "Joy To The World," "Never Been To Spain," "Prelude To Liar," "Liar," "Sault Ste. Marie," "Out In The Country," "Easy To Be Hard," "An Old Fashioned Love Song," "Prelude To One," "One," "Overground," "Celebrate," "Eli's Coming (Live)," "Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues) (Live)," "Try A Little Tenderness (Live)" and "The Family Of Man (Live)." The two new songs discovered by Three Dog Night are "Sault Ste. Marie" and "Overground."
"The band recorded its parts and then Danny and I went to Abbey Road to get that in synch with London Symphony Orchestra's part. Larry Baird had made charts for the orchestra to follow," Wells says. "They ran through the songs three times. The first and second times were for rehearsal and the third time was recorded."
"The thing that was so fabulous was working with the orchestra. They played on Beatles albums and went on to work on the soundtracks to 'Star Wars' and the Harry Potter movies," Hutton says.
"I knew in my heart that our music is not a one-trick pony, so it was conducive to adding more melody parts. We gave Larry Baird his space to do something new. Just the size of having that many instruments playing together was incredible."
"I think the orchestra sounds especially great on the interludes, like those at the beginning of 'Liar' and 'One.' I was also happy with the horns on 'Try A Little Tenderness' because I wanted to add them to the original recording but there wasn't time. It's amazing that 35 years later we got to record it the way I envisioned it. That's very satisfying," says Wells.
Three Dog Night built their reputation for impeccable taste in selecting songs to record. And there was one specific reason why there happened to be such a wealth of quality material.
"After the Beatles came out, bands wanted to be self-sufficient and write their own songs. That meant there were all these amazing songwriters out there with great songs that nobody was using," explains Wells.
Three Dog Night chose songs by mostly unknown songwriters who would go on to achieve their own fame: Harry Nilsson ("One"), Elton John and Bernie Taupin ("Lady Samantha"), Laura Nyro ("Eli's Coming"), Randy Newman ("Mama Told Me (Not To Come)"), Paul Williams ("Out In The Country," "An Old Fashioned Love Song" and "The Family Of Man"), Hoyt Axton ("Joy To The World" and "Never Been To Spain"), Russ Ballard ("Liar"), David Loggins ("Pieces Of April"), Leo Sayer ("The Show Must Go On"), John Hiatt ("Sure As I'm Sittin' Here") and Allen Toussaint ("Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues)").
The members of Three Dog Night had already experienced modest success as performers, songwriters, producers or session musicians before joining forces in Los Angeles in 1968. Utilizing multiple lead singers was the band's plan of attack and it didn't take long for them to generate buzz and secure a record deal.
"A label called White Whale Records wanted to sign us immediately but we decided to see who else was interested. We did a showcase at the Troubador and a bidding war started. We ended up signing with Dunhill-ABC Records, but we still needed a name," Wells says.
Hence the famous story about the origin of the name Three Dog Night. It was a phrase used by aborigines in the Australian outback to describe how cold it could get; a "three dog night" meant frigid conditions called for huddling with three dogs for warmth.
Three Dog Night's self-titled debut album was released in late 1968 and it became an immediate hit. Fortunes changed enormously for the band members.
"I'd come from a poor background. Six months after rehearsing in Danny's bedroom we had a hit album," Wells says.
Further successful albums included 'Suitable For Framing,' 'Captured Live At The Forum,' 'It Ain't Easy,' 'Naturally,' 'Harmony' and 'Seven Separate Fools.'
Although it entailed a lot of hard work, Three Dog Night did enjoy being in the studio selecting songs from the demo tapes submitted. The most fun came from the creative satisfaction of taking the demos and arranging the songs to fit the band's skills.
The albums and singles like the chart-toppers "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)," "Joy To The World" and "Black & White" were monster hits, but Three Dog Night was a killer live act and box-office sensation too.
"Dick Clark once said on 'American Bandstand' that our records were great but that people must see us live," Hutton says.
Eventually, the relentless album-tour-album-tour pace and resulting lifestyle began to wear the band down, and various personal problems began eating away too.
"Life was moving at a high speed. As time went on and we became more famous a lot of our private lives suffered. We certainly had our share of heartache and destruction," says Wells. "On the positive side, certain events stand out, like playing the Cotton Bowl in Dallas and having Rod Stewart open for us at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh."
"We never had a chance to rest," says Hutton, "and it became a grind."
In 1977, Three Dog Night split up and the members pursued various solo projects. Hutton immersed himself in punk and became a well-known producer and manager of bands like Fear and The Go-Go's. Some people found it hard to believe that one of the singers in a commercial behemoth like Three Dog Night would be attracted to punk, but it felt natural to Hutton because he loved all kinds of music, and still does.
"Three Dog Night incorporated all kinds of styles. And back then different kinds of bands toured together and nobody thought anything about it. We once did a show with James Taylor and Led Zeppelin. You really couldn't do anything like that today. Usually only bands with a similar style tour together these days but there should be no musical ghettos," Hutton says.
Upon reuniting in 1981 an EP was recorded and released. By the mid-1980s Three Dog Night was back permanently. The band still packs the crowds in, and hopefully that interest will manifest itself into more live shows with local orchestras participating.
"Symphonies are having a tough time," Hutton says. "Hopefully the reaction to the new album will be good enough so that we can do more concerts with them. It's great to expose our fans to them and theirs to us. Our crowds range from original baby-boomer fans to college kids who are in to the retro thing to little kids who know 'Joy To The World' because of the 'Jeremiah was a bullfrog' lyric."
