Three Dog Night was a genuine phenomenon in the early-mid 70s. At the height of their fame, they recorded and released their eighth official release, Seven Separate Fools. Many folks liked this record in 1972, but I dare say that it’s nobody’s favorite Three Dog Night album. Well, there’s Brian Wilson. But it sure seems to be a forgotten record now by most people.
TDN came to prominence in the early 70s not for their songwriting acumen, but for their ability to take great songs by first class songwriters like Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman and add a little something extra, making them smash hits. They stayed true to formula here, covering the likes of Rare Earth, Dave Loggins and Newman again, among others.
SSF was given an elaborate, expensive-looking package design. The jacket itself was created like a box, or more accurately a box of playing cards, with a flap at the top that closed it. It contained seven large size cards, kind of a mashup of playing cards and tarot cards, each with a picture of the individual group members in fantasy scenarios, depicting them as riverboat gamblers, Russian cossacks, a mime, and so on. Art direction and photography was by the great Ed Caraeff; typography and design by David Larkham, who did Elton’s Madman Across the Water - this jacket, at least on the front, bears a strong resemblance to that record’s look.
Song rundown!
”Black and White”, the big hit single from this one, was just the latest in TDN’s winning streak. Written in 1955 by two McCarthy-era blacklisted folk singers, Earl Robinson and David I. Arkin (Alan’s father), and covered by Pete Seeger eventually, it was created to take America to task for the crime of segregation. TDN heard the version by reggae group Greyhound, and that’s what influenced their version. It bops along with a slight reggae/ska feel, plunking piano and cowbell punctuations, and utilizes a children’s chorus to great effect. Sadly, by omitting some lines at the end of the song, TDN transforms it from a scathing indictment of racism to a feel-good pop single that naively longs for a better world that didn’t exist in 1972 and still doesn’t 50 years later. Either way, it is a remarkably catchy and melodic pop song, and as such is very entertaining. Not sure how Robinson and Arkin felt about that though.
Here’s a way more in-depth article on the song, where I got most of my facts.
“My Old Kentucky Home” is not the Stephen Foster standard, but another acerbic and wry character study by Randy Newman, who TDN had alread successfully covered with their take on his “Mama Told Me Not to Come”. TDN’s version isn’t all that different from Newman’s (on 12 Songs) but Cory Wells sings it with a condescending drawl, and that kinda spoils it. I don’t think they ever covered Newman again.
“Prelude to Morning” by keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon is a nice little instrumental intro to “Pieces of April”, written by Kenny Loggins’ 2nd cousin Dave (He wrote “Please Come to Boston”) which was the second single from the album after “Black and White” fell off. “Pieces” at its heart is a sad song about a lost love, but it’s given an overripe and often flat vocal treatment by Chuck Negron and an elaborate arrangement with a ton of reverb and echo all over everything that takes away some of my enjoyment of the song. The single only made it to #19 on the Billboard chart.
“Going in Circles” - When I write these things, one thing I look at is who wrote the song and try to find out a detail or two about them. This dirgelike and rather downbeat slow builder was written by someone named “Jaiananda” which appears to be a pseudonym for Vicky Hutton, whose relationship, if any, to TDN singer Danny I can’t find anywhere. Was she a sister/cousin/lover/wife? Who knows. Ted Myers, on the other hand, seems to have had quite a career, mostly in the background as a writer, studio performer, and more. Here’s his story. Back to this song, I have to wonder if Manfred Mann ever considered covering it; it seems to be right in his wheelhouse. The Earth Band did do a song called “Circles”, but it’s a different one.
”Chained” is Hoyt Axton/Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” rearranged so they can say “See, we’re not just a teenybopper singles band”. This has been my main takeaway from repeated listens to SSF; they really aspired to Rare Earth (see later)/Steppenwolf/James Gang style blues rock, but it was the pop song covers that paid the studio bills. As such, this song, composed by Russ Ballard of Argent fame, does chug along nicely. Negron and Hutton swap out vocals. They had previously covered Ballard’s “Liar” on a previous album.
”Tulsa Turnaround” is more country/blooz, this one with Cory Wells stepping up and saying “Look here, Negron, I can oversing too!”. Wells’ yowly, slurring vocal does give this one some flavor, although that flavor may be more akin to possum stew. Written by country singer, (Thomas) Alex Harvey (not the Scot crazy man glam rock singer) and guitarist Larry Collins. This isn’t a terribly bad track, and it makes me want to seek out the original version. Fun fact: the Collins/Harvey team also gave us the classic “Delta Dawn”.
Hutton and Wells team up again on track 8, “In Bed”, a catchy, somewhat R&B-ish exercise that was first performed by the aforementioned Rare Earth, a group that has given us at least two very recognizable hit songs (“Get Ready” and “I Just Wanna Celebrate”) that are still used often today, though the band itself has faded into obscurity. There’s a distinct James Gang flavor to TDN’s cover, which is pretty faithful to the original (yeah, I went down a Rare Earth rabbit hole just recently) with its Joe Walsh-ish guitar vamping and singalong chorus. If not for the risque title, this one might have made an interesting follow-up, singles-wise, to “Pieces of April”.
Damn, there are a lot of songs on this LP!
”Freedom for the Stallion” is next, an Allen Toussaint song no less, and it begins with a martial drumbeat that slowly builds into a piano-driven statement about the desire for peace and brotherhood and all that kinda stuff. Again, not a bad track, but it suffers, like several of these songs, from a feeling of weariness, a deliberateness, if you will, which may signal that the guys were tired from the grind; it’s a bit telling that the next album was a double live.
“The Writing’s on the Wall” finds us back in James Gang territory, maybe Mountain a la “Mississippi Queen”; no surprise that it was written by Dominic Troiano, who briefly bridged the gap between Joe Walsh and Tommy Bolin in the James Gang and eventually wound up in the Guess Who just before that band went kerblooey too. Half the song is complaining about the sad state of the world around them, then essentially dismisses it with a shrug: “The writing’s on the wall/facts are in the books/what will be will always be/the writing’s on the wall… yeah”. Right, thanks for stopping by, fellas. Next.
The LP concludes with “Midnight Runaway”, which boasts yet another serpentine guitar riff at its base, with change-of-pace acoustic-guitar strummed middle section. It’s a composition by someone named Gary Itri, who doesn’t turn up much when Googled (Genius lyrics says this is his most-searched for song), but from what I can gather he was one of many studio and session guys who would join studio-conceived groups like Edison Lighthouse (“Love Grows”) and Looking Glass (“Brandy”). Itri’s linked with Blues Image (“Ride Captain Ride”) mostly. Corrections and suggestions are always welcome. Anyway, this is one of those road-weary songs in which the singer is feeling the strain and entreats his partner/love interest to go away with him on a midnight runaway. Chuck Negron gives it a heartfelt-sounding vocal. That’s pretty much it. And yet, like all these songs, “Runaway” has a strong melody in there, and the proper radio-friendly dynamics… but like the vast majority of these tracks on this album, it sounds lifeless. Given the subject matter, this is understandable but not so much fun for the listener.
Seven Separate Fools performed pretty well, as all TDN albums did, although after “Pieces of April”’s so-so performance no more singles were released. In 2016, no less a figure than Brian Wilson, who was buddies with Hutton and had intended to produce the pre-3DN vocal trio then called Redwood (he did give them a song, “Time to Get Alone”) surprisingly placed it at #3 on his ten favorite album list, saying that “Danny Hutton’s vocals are truly on point”.
The party train continued for a couple more years as they scored hits with “Shambala” and the Leo Sayer/David Courtney cover “The Show Must Go On”. But alas, it didn’t go on much longer and after two underperforming records, they called it a day. But of course, that wasn’t the end- like so many of these classic rock bands, they reformed and toured and intermittently put out a record or two; band members rotated and changed, the original singers bowed out and rejoined, and so the story goes. Three Dog Night is together today even and still tours, but only Danny Hutton and guitarist Michael Allsup are around from the glory days.
But 12 year old me didn’t really care about all this; he liked “Black and White” and was intrigued by the cover, so now as a much older man he still has fond memories of this album and those times listening to it. So here we are, full circle. Going in circles, if you will.
Listen to Three Dog Night’s Seven Separate Fools on the streaming service of your choice.
Not their greatest album (prefer the first two) but that cover & overall package was a true relic of the old days of album design. There's a kind of William Morris feel to the floral "wallpaper" pattern.
I know little of the band beyond what got played on classic rock stations, so I enjoyed your write-up.