ALBUM OF THE WEEK # 382 THREE DOG NIGHT - NATURALLY (1970)

[RJhog (Admin)]

Disclaimer: All info that does not reside in my brain is gathered from wikipedia.com (mostly because Jon can't stand it) unless otherwise noted.

Three Dog Night has never been featured in the CRB Album of the Week forum, so let's give them the spotlight this week.  Naturally is the American band's fourth studio album, fifth album overall.  It comes to us from all the way back in 1970.  The album was certified Gold by the RIAA and it scored a Top 20 showing for the band, topping out at number 14.  One Man Band and Liar were both Top 20 singles, but the big dog was Joy To The World.  That song was the second of three number one hits for Three Dog Night.

Of all of the songs on the album, only one of them, the instrumental Fire Eater, was written by the band.  The rest were all written by others.  Joy To The World was written by Hoyt Axton.  When it became a number one hit, Axton and his mother (Mae Axton) became the first mother/son combination to have each written a number one pop single in the rock era.  She co-wrote Heartbreak Hotel.

This album can be had for under 5 dollars on Amazon.  Buy it.

Side One:

1. I Can Hear You Calling

2. One Man Band

3. I'll Be Creeping

4. Fire Eater

5. Can't Get Enough Of It

Side Two:

6. Sunlight

7. Heavy Church

8. Liar

9. I've Got Enough Heartache

10. Joy To The World

[Jon]

This is really good stuff. I have a singles collection from them, have been looking into getting their albums for awhile, still have my eyes on a couple of remastered twofers of their first four studio albums and might pull the trigger soon. They rock out quite a bit, long ago I thought of them as a soft rock band. Good stuff, this is.

[Scott]

One my earliest influences was this band.  My brother had the album "Cyan" and I have distinct memories of this band being on the Midnight Special, or maybe it was Rock Concert, but the drummer played a transparent drum kit which was cool and the band just had a presence about them.  But it was "Out In The Country" and "Pieces of April" that blew me away!  Such great tunes, still are!

Fun album to hear right from the opening notes.  One Man Band is very familiar of course and even though its been a good long while since I've heard it, each note sounds like I heard it yesterday.  I can't help but think how good of a rock voice Negron had.  Shame how much talent he wasted, seems to me this band could have really been so much more (and they were huge for awhile) ... 

There's a lot of soul influence in the song writing team that's feeding them songs.  Didn't realize that until now, but even thinking back on some of the hits, its rocked up soul!

Sunlight is just pure goodness!  If you did a Cherry pick this would likely be it.  There's that rocked up vocal on Liar!  So good!  This song kicks some serious butt!  Ive Got Enough Heartache is another killer tune and forget with the Jeremiah was a Bullfrog opening lyric!  I'm toast...  This was fantastic!