An excellent quickie career overview of Three Dog Night3 Out Of 5 Stars
Three Dog Night started in the late sixties as a rocking outfit who made their reputation at their concerts. To the point that one of their earliest albums was "Captured Live at the Forum." But they soon evolved into a singles act, racking up 21 top forty hits between 1969 and 1975. What they also had was impeccable tastes in songwriters. They plucked out gems from the likes of Laura Nero ("Eli's Comeing"), Harry Nillson ("one"), John Hiatt ("Sure As I'm Sitting Here" not included here) and Leo Sayer ("The Show Must Go On"). They really struck gold on what became their standard bearer, the inescapable "Joy To The World." Face it, you just went "Jeremiah was a bullfrog" in your head after reading that last line. Don't fib.
They were buoyed by a trio of lead vocalists, Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron, and Cory Wells. It was one of the qualities that kept the band's sound fresh. They could work their way around a rocker like "Liar," something soulful like "Never Been to Spain," or the inspired silliness of "Joy To The World." If you were an AM radio listener through the early seventies, Three Dog Night were pretty much unavoidable. That also began to work against them; as the band became more popular, the more obvious it became that they were fishing for hits and the albums became wickedly uneven, with the final straw being 1975's "Hard Labor," the band broke up soon after.
This quickie dozen song compilation from the Icon series gets the job done on the cheap, but cuts that string of hits down by a few essentials. "Sure As I'm Sitting Here" and "Play Something Sweet" immediately spring to mind. That's why the three star/C grade is applied here. I will also note that the sound of this CD is heads above any other Three Dog Night re-issue. Worth it for the value, but not for the depth.
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