Opening Act: Chris Trapper
Iconic American band, THREE DOG NIGHT, now celebrating its 6th decade, boasts some of the most astonishing chart statistics in popular music with 21 consecutive Billboard Top 40 hits, including 3 #1 singles and 12 straight RIAA Certified Gold LPs.
Created in 1968 by Irish-born Danny Hutton, the group was conceived to feature three strong vocalists who shared leads and also blended together in exquisite three-part harmony, complemented by four ace instrumentalists, creating a self-contained unit. This ultimately became Three Dog Night’s signature sound in the studio and live on the road.
Working with the studio duo of Richie Podolor and Bill Cooper at American Recording, they resurrected and recreated songs of the best and mostly undiscovered new songwriters of that time including Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Elton John, Laura Nyro, Paul Williams and Hoyt Axton among many others. The band’s eclectic taste and arranging talents, combined with the ability to recognize and record hits in a distinctive style, resulted in Three Dog Night dominating the charts for years, earning a Grammy nomination, performing at two Super Bowls and pervading American culture with its music ubiquitous on the radio and in film and television.
From their debut eponymous album, Three Dog Night went on to release 12 gold albums and by 1975, driven by chart-topping songs like “One” “Easy to be Hard”, “Mama Told Me (Not to Come),” “Joy to the World”, “Black and White”, “Shambala” and others, the band had sold over 50 million records. During that time Three Dog Night also toured relentlessly, quickly ramping up from smaller venues to selling out stadiums, virtually establishing the modern concept of a “stadium tour”.
Hutton, a denizen of the Laurel Canyon and Sunset Blvd music scenes, was well established as a songwriter, producer and recording artist. He worked as a writer/producer for the label established by Hanna-Barbera animation studio where he was also immortalized as a character on “The Flintstones”. Hutton had several regional hits as a solo artist including “Roses and Rainbows” and was invited to join the Sonny and Cher tour, where he met Cory Wells, lead singer of the Enemys. They recruited Chuck Negron to complete the sound. Initially the trio planned to work with Danny’s good friend and mentor, Brian Wilson, and record for the Beach Boys label Brother Records. Wilson had christened them “Redwood” and they began work on several tunes. However, that project was abandoned when the Beach Boys objected to Brian’s songs going to another band. After staging a showcase at Hollywood’s famous Troubadour and garnering the attention of various label heads, Hutton eventually signed the group to ABC Dunhill records. They sought out talented musicians and formed their own self-contained band to both tour and record – allowing them to hone a specific sound and giving them independence from the labels and “Wrecking Crew” studio musicians that drove the sound of that era. The band’s name –Three Dog Night is the now famous moniker that derives from the tale of outback hunters who sleep with their dingoes on cold nights, the coldest being a “three dog night”.
Three Dog Night continues to perform over 80 shows a year – thrilling multigenerational audiences by delivering those larger-than-life songs with customary impeccable harmonies over a hard-driving rock and roll foundation.
This year, Three Dog Night will release Enter its first studio album in nearly 40 years. Again working with Bill Cooper from the original production team, Hutton and the band present a body of eclectic material, this time including songs penned by Hutton. The project was recorded at Canyon Hut studios, adjacent to the house in Laurel Canyon Los Angeles that Danny purchased from shock rocker Alice Cooper over 4 decades ago.
THREE DOG NIGHT’s Top 40 Hits include;
“Mama Told M (Not to Come)”, “Joy to the World”, “Black and White”, “Shambala”, “Easy To Be Hard”, “An Old Fashioned Love Song”, “One”, “The Show Must Go On”, “Never Been To Spain”, “Eli’s Coming”, “The Family of Man”, “Liar”, “Celebrate”, “Out In The Country”, “Pieces of April”, “One Man Band”
