NEW YORK (AP) — Chuck Negron, a founding member of the soul-rock sensations Three Dog Night who sang lead on such hits as “One” and “Exact an Aged Fashioned Be pleased Tune” and hollered the immortal opening line “Jeremiah used to be a bullfrog!” on the chart-topping “Joy to the World,” died Monday. He used to be 83.
He died of considerations from heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary illness at his home within the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, in step with publicist Zach Farnum.
Negron and fellow vocalists Cory Wells and Danny Hutton had been Los Angeles-essentially based mostly performers who began working together within the mid-1960s, in the beginning called themselves Redwood and settled on Three Dog Night, Australian slang for frigid outback climate. Between 1969 and 1974, they had been amongst the sector’s most profitable acts, with 18 high 20 singles and 12 albums licensed gold for promoting no longer lower than 500,000 copies.
The neighborhood contributed exiguous of its possess field topic, but proved uniquely adept at decoding others, remodeling songs by such rising stars of the time as Randy Newman (“Mama Urged Me Not to Come),” Paul Williams (“Exact an Aged-Fashioned Be pleased Tune”) and Laura Nyro (“Eli’s Coming”). No topic the originator, the sound used to be unmistakably Three Dog Night: The trio of stars worked themselves into a raved-up, free-for-all passion, as if every singer had been trying to vault in entrance of the others. “The Kings of Oversing,” the Village Squawk would call them.
Three Dog Night used to be so popular, and so in question, it released four albums within 18 months. In December 1972, the band hosted and carried out on the inaugural edition of Dick Clark’s “Contemporary Yr’s Rockin’ Eve.”
“We had been in actuality on a roll and in actuality prolific,” Negron told smashinginterviews.com in 2013. “We had been within the zone to be capable to communicate and in actuality inserting it within the market. Relief then, I don’t think it damage us. It started hurting honest a exiguous after that when there used to be staunch too considerable product. We had been going to towns too over and over a year. I keep in mind getting off a aircraft in Dallas and contemplating, ‘Wait a 2nd. Weren’t we staunch right here?’ Exact contemplating, ‘Oh, God, how are we going to promote out?’”
Nicely, howdy Jeremiah
Negron himself stood out for his drooping mustache, not like his orderly-shaven peers, and for his multi-octave tenor. He helped remodel “One,” a Harry Nilsson ballad, from a breakup tune to a cry of helpless solitude. And he helped persuade Wells and Hutton no longer to toddle on what became their most renowned tune.
“Joy to the World,” written by Hoyt Axton, shared the title and exiguous else with the 18th century English hymn. Axton’s novelty anthem used to be a secular blessing — “Joy to the fishes within the deep blue sea, joy to you and me” — with carefree asides about women folks, rainbow-using and the friendship of a wine-guzzling bullfrog named Jeremiah. In step with Negron, the different singers had twice became down “Joy to the World” in his absence forward of Axton played him a demo.
“When he started, I cherished it without prolong. I believed we’re going to have some fun with it,” Negron told forbes.com in 2022. “We had some free time later, so we started jamming ‘Joy’ for fun. We didn’t want to be so frigid all of the time, correct? That opening line wanted to be screamed. Did that guy staunch snort, ‘Jeremiah used to be a bullfrog’? I purchased up the size to D, which within reason excessive, and staunch screamed it out. When the band heard that, they went, ‘Holy crap, that’s immense.‘”
Nobody gave the impression to care what “Jeremiah used to be a bullfrog!” used to be supposed to mean; it became a catchphrase of the technology. “Joy to the World” outsold all other songs in 1971, bought two Grammy nominations and lived on by oldies radio stations and portray soundtracks, particularly for “The Enormous Relax” and “Forrest Gump.” The tune caught on so swiftly, and for see you later, that Three Dog Night carried out it at support-to-support Grammy ceremonies.
Their other hits incorporated “Gloomy and White,” “Celebrate,” “Shambala” and “Easy to Be Laborious.” Nevertheless by the mid-Seventies, the band used to be burned out, feuding and self-destructing. They broke up in 1976, tried the occasional reunion and settled in as an oldies act, with Hutton the finest ultimate long-established singer. Wells died in 2015, whereas Negron had dropped out for staunch within the mid-1980s, when his drug problems led to his being fired.
Negron would call his memoir, printed in 1998 and reissued two decades later, “Three Dog Nightmare.” Chapter titles incorporated “Making Hundreds of thousands and Stoned Your entire Time” and “Threw Up My Guts and Most popular It.”
After a protracted time of estrangement between him and Hutton, the 2 men reconciled final year.
Negron used to be married four times, most no longer too long within the past to his supervisor, Ami Albea Negron, and he’s survived by 5 younger folks His outdated other halves consist of Julie Densmore, dilapidated wife of drummer John Densmore of the Doors.
Surviving a rock star’s life
Born Charles Negron II in 1942, he used to be a Contemporary York City native who used to be serene a toddler when his parents broke up: For a time, Negron lived in a foster home because his mother couldn’t afford to elevate him and his twin sister, Nancy. He in the beginning dreamed of playing basketball, but his life modified in childhood when his easiest friend convinced him to comprehend a take a examine singing. He won a school expertise indicate, and used to be soon singing professionally, at the Apollo and other venues around Contemporary York.
After graduating from Hancock, a junior school in Santa Maria, California, Negron carried out in clubs in Los Angeles and met Wells and Hutton, whose friends incorporated Brian Wilson of the Seaside Boys. They virtually signed with the Seaside Boys’ Brothers Records forward of Wilson’s bandmates, horrified that their chief used to be using up his skills in other locations, intervened. Negron, Wells and Hutton ended up at ABC-Dunhill, and recruited a backing band, alongside side Floyd Sneed on drums, Joe Schermie on bass and Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards.
In his submit-Three Dog Night years, Negron released several solo albums, alongside side “Joy to the World” and “Long Facet street Relief,” a accomplice to his memoir, and in another case dedicated himself to helping others struggling with substance abuse. Earlier than cleaning up within the Nineties — Sept. 17, 1991 — he had been so hooked on heroin and other medication that he virtually died a vogue of times, misplaced his family and all of his money and descended from a luxurious villa in Hollywood Hills to sound asleep on a mattress in a vacant lot.
“That’s what medication manufacture. I don’t care if it offers you profitable tune. What does it topic?” he told smashinginterviews.com. “The level is no longer if it helps you secure, the level is it kills you! Are you involving to die because you compulsory to comprehend a take a examine medication to comprehend a take a examine a brand current trip? That’s the quiz. I’m in a town right here where there are a vogue of who ain’t the same and under no circumstances will be.”
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Associated Press creator Beth Harris in Los Angeles contributed to this document.