Three Dog Night 1968 Debut Album Review

Feature Photo: Public Relations, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Anytime we publish an article about Three Dog Night, it receives a tremendous response, which tells us one thing: people loved that band. Of course, they are one of my favorite bands of all time. I grew up listening to them.

Not just the big hits on the radio, but as a teenager in the 1970s, I purchased every single album they released. So I thought it was time to basically go back and run through every single one of their studio albums and just write a little bit about the records, give some helpful information, and some commentary about each one of their albums. So we start with their debut album…..

Recorded in Los Angeles in 1968, Three Dog Night was produced by Gabriel Mekler. The album featured the vocal talents of Danny Hutton, Cory Wells, and Chuck Negron, backed by an impressive lineup of musicians who too often didn’t get the credit they should have.

These fantastic musicians played with an intense spirit, blending rock and soul grooves that sounded perfect on the radio. They were their own Wrecking Crew. The band included Michael Allsup on guitar, Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards, Joe Schermie on bass, and Floyd Sneed on drums.

The three vocalists had first worked together as Redwood before becoming Three Dog Night. The band’s name comes from a story about Indigenous Australians using dingoes for warmth on cold nights, with an especially cold night described as a “three dog night.”

The album made a strong commercial impression, eventually reaching number eleven on the U.S. Billboard 200 and number seventeen in Canada. While the first two singles from the album, “Nobody” and “Try A Little Tenderness,” achieved only moderate chart success, the third single, “One,” became their breakthrough hit, reaching number five on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969.

The album showcased the group’s versatility and interpretive talent, featuring songs by an impressive array of songwriters and artists, including Traffic, The Beatles, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Tim Hardin, Robbie Robertson, and Harry Nilsson.

Three Dog Night would continue this pattern throughout its career, developing a remarkable ability to identify songs by writers who were either emerging or not yet widely known to mainstream audiences. The band later became one of the first major acts to record Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Your Song,” but that recording appeared on It Ain’t Easy in 1970, not on this debut album.

The album title has often confused fans. Gary Burden designed the cover, which initially displayed only the band’s name. Although later releases and references sometimes used the hit song “One” as an alternate title, the original album was officially titled Three Dog Night.

Three Dog Night’s self-titled debut made a remarkable commercial impact after its 1968 release, peaking at number eleven on the Billboard 200 and number seventeen on the Canadian Albums Chart. The RIAA certified the album Gold on August 15, 1969, and Platinum on August 5, 2008, recognizing more than one million certified units in the United States.

The first single, “Nobody,” peaked at number 116 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart. “Try A Little Tenderness” followed, reaching number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 19 in Canada.

Then came “One.” Written by Harry Nilsson and sung by Chuck Negron, the song became the album’s breakout hit, climbing to number five on the Billboard Hot 100. It also reached number one on the Record World singles chart, number four in Canada, and number sixteen in New Zealand.

While many fans remember the hits, the album’s harder-edged material became cult favorites among those of us who bought the individual records. “Nobody” is a real scorcher, and “Chest Fever” is another smoking rock and roll performance that shows just how hard this band could play.