The reunion between Danny Hutton and Chuck Negron was not based on previous credits or records when Danny Hutton entered the home of Chuck Negron after decades of separation.“When I arrived at his house, we hugged, cried, reminisced, and shared many stories,” Hutton wrote.“In that moment, we realized how much time had been lost by not being in each other’s lives.”
According to his publicist, Negron, a founder of Three Dog Night, passed away at 83 in his home in Studio City, Los Angeles, due to the aftermath of heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. To those listeners who recognize the band with a first chorus instead of a band biography, his sound is simple to recognize: bright, urgent lead that was the driving force behind: “Joy to the world,” “one,” “an old fashioned love song,” “easy to be hard,” and “the show must go on.”
The popularity of Three Dog night was based on a very basic yet challenging concept, three different lead singers who were swapping the stage within a band designed to be radio friendly and huge harmonies. In 1967, Negron would enter into a partnership with Hutton and Cory Wells, where he would build on his instincts of R&B, rock and doo-wop that he would start developing as a child in the Bronx. He came to Los Angeles to play basketball at California State University and he remained to play music and brought a voice that could penetrate through brass, guitar and built-up choruses without any warmth. The early success of the band was the million selling song by Harry Nilsson titled “One,” followed by a series of hits that would become oldies staples and soundtrack hits in movies. It was not only success, but at some time there was saturation, singles and tours, TV shows, and the sort of ubiquity that makes a band a shorthand description of an age.
Among such culture-stitching instances was the one that hit New Year’s Eve in 1972 when Three Dog Night hosted the debut of Dick Clark’s “New Year Rockin Eve”. Instead of the older tradition of the big-band, the show leaned towards the contemporary pop and rock, and the group were the hosts and performers. The fact itself is important since it indicates the place of the band at that time: mainstream enough to feature in a national broadcast, up-to-date enough to represent a change in the sound of what a “holiday television” was.
That peak did not hold. By mid 1970s the sales had faded, internal tension increased and the group disintegrated. Nearest to the peak and the fall was a heavy drug consumption on the part of Negron, who later reported spending his money on drugs and ending up in the Skid Row of Los Angeles. The final billboard Hot 100 hit by Three Dog Night was in 1975 with “Til the World Ends” and the group disbanded in 1976. In 1981, there was a reunion and in 1985 Negron was fired due to constant drug problems.
Later story by Negron was no longer about the nostalgic circuit of the band, but rather about recovery and sustenance. He also did several rehabilitation efforts before becoming sober in 1991, and he released seven solo albums between 1995 and 2017. In a 1999 memoir, “Three Dog Nightmare,” he followed the line of fame to addiction to sobriety and publicly detailed what success had cost him and what it had required to bring him back. He also spent years with chronic COPD in which he toured across the illness until the COVID-19 pandemic made traveling risky due to his illness.
Towards the end, there was a protracted alienation softened. Hutton and Negron were reconciled last year, a closing to the story which did not actually rewrite the past, but cleaned its edges. Negron leaves behind a wife, Ami Albea Negron as well as five children among them Berry Oakley Jr who he had helped raise.
