Customer Reviews

Celebrate: Three Dog Night Story

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This group was the soundtrack to my adolescence & young adulthood. They were my first rock concert, and I saw them close to a dozen more times. I could hardly wait till they released their next album, and ran out and bought it right away. I could go on about their music, but most fans probably already know all about the complex harmonies, the changing line-ups (remember vocalist Jay Gruska or the rhythm section from Rufus stepping in?)Celebrate is a terrific document, but misses a lot of the gems that were never singles. Coming Down Your way, American Pastime & It's A Jungle are very under-represented albums here. And those three, along with Around The World still haven't made it to CD. I'd love to see a boxed set of all their albums, along with the rarities remastered and made available. For fun, throw in Corey Well's disco-tinged solo effort which came out after the breakup, and why not S.S.Fools, the original backup band's subsequent album. Three Dog Night may not have the reputation of Led Zeppelin or the Beatles, but they sure had a huge fan base. And they knew how to make a good pop song (remember when pop song wasn't considered a bad thing?). Anyway, buy this set, but keep pushing for the complete CD re-release of the entire catalogue. Three Dog Night gave us fun and excitement during turbulent times, their concerts were wall-to-wall pop & rock music perfection, and they seemed to actually like their fans.

Great set here. Three Dog Night have some of the greatest harmonies of all time. It includes long out of print mono mixes of many their singles. The edited monophonic 45 mix of 'Joy To The World', which features a guitar solo mixed out of the stereo version, is a breath of fresh air. 'Time To Get Alone' is an interesting listen since it is Three Dog Night under their original moniker of 'Redwood'. Brian Wilson produced the song for them but it went unreleased. The Beach Boys used the same backing track on the album, '20/20'. 'Til The World Ends' is absolutely incredible. It really is a shame that this song is virtually ignored by radio these days. The packaging is very nice. Inside the rather informative booklet is the original cancelled sleeve for the album 'It Ain't Easy'. This box will fill a major void in your CD collection.

When I purchased this package several years ago, this was easily the best available collection of Three Dog Night on the market. No question about it, Three Dog Night dominated the music charts like no one else in the early 1970's All 21 of the groups single releases between 1969 and 1975 made the Top 40 and all of those songs are included here. There were 11 Top Ten tunes and 3 of those went all the way to #1 including "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)", "Joy To The World" and "Black and White". At the same time they were dominating the AM airwaves, Three Dog Night could also be heard on the FM side of the dial. The group released some 14 albums and 5 of those went Top Ten on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart.
As stated previously, this magnificent collection includes all 21 hit singles as well as many great tracks from the LPs. There is also an exceptional 30 page booklet that chronicles the entire history of the group. But since I am primarily interested in the "singles" this collection offers far more than I am really looking for or need. At this point I would recommend this package to big fans of the band only. For the rest of us there is now an alternative. In May 2004 Universal released all 21 hit singles on 1 CD. Priced at less than half of what one would have to shell out fot this deluxe 2 CD package it is now the better value.

You really can't go wrong with guys who mastered the art of the 3 minute single! Sure, a lot of other groups tried to be "progressive" or "groundbreaking" with their 15 minute boring or discordant instrumental jams, but is as fun to listen to as Three Dog Night singles these days? Probably not.

Even though the book, "Oldies on CD" finds this title to be a bit controversial, I like it a lot. The reason for their comment was the choice of 45 versions of the songs. Several of them on this CD set are in mono, not stereo. There is a reason why record collectors like myself actually find this to be a major PLUS. Back in the 60's and 70's, the mono 45 mixes were not simply Left+Right stereo mixes. The mono mixes were done separately and equalized for AM radio. The instrumental balance was entirely different, at times, specific instruments were added or deleted from the 45 mixes- giving them an entirely different character from their LP stereo counterparts.

Particularly notable are the songs: Time to Get Alone (previously unreleased), Try a Little Tenderness (45 version), Eli's Coming (45 version), Celebrate (45 version), Joy To the World (45 version), Liar (45 version), Old Fashioned Love Song (45 version), Family of Man (45 version), Pieces of April (45 version), Shambala (45 version), The Show Must Go On (45 version)

"Time to Get Alone" is great. It seems to have the same backing track as the Beach Boys' version on "20/20". "Liar" is more eerie in its 45 incarnation.

45 RPM records went out-of-print years ago, and there's two generations of people who had never heard the 45 versions of these songs. The stereo LP versions remained in-print on compilations such as the highly recommended (by me) "The Best of Three Dog Night". Buy them both- even though there is a bit of duplication, the differences between them make both worth the money.

Three-Dog Night. If you went to high school in the early 70's as I did you cringe when you think of their songs. Quite simply, they were considered "bubble-gum" music. But way back then a friend dumped a copy of their "Live at the Forum" album on me and I was surprised how guitar-driven they were. That album, while simplistic, was rather fun to listen to. Fast forward to their "Live around the world" double album and you saw a much more boring group. What happened between to this band? This two-CD set begins to answer that by charting their musical roots and then following their style changes.

Starting off with a couple of unreleased demos and moving through their earlier music you see a band that mixed three-part harmonies with very able musicians. Songs like "It's for You" and "Heaven is in Your Mind" gave both musicians and singers a chance to shine. It would have been nice to see a couple of live cuts here but, alas, it's not to be. As we begin to progress into the top-ten hits (Eli's Coming, One, etc) we see how the success of those songs begin to water down their music. Not that there isn't gems throughout their career. One of my favorite songs here is "Midnight Runaway", a fairly good rocker from the same period as "Black & White" (eeyyuck). Other highlights off this set: "Good Feeling" (an attempt to do 50's doo-wop), "One Man Band", and a great song from late in their run "Brickyard Blues".

Overall this is a solid Greatest Hits package covering about 10 years. With 43 songs on two CD's there is a lot of music covering a lot of styles. I would recommend this to, of course any Three-Dog Night fan, but also to fans who enjoyed the 70's style of top-40 hits. In other words, nothing meaningful, just fun music.

I grew up only knowing a few TDN songs--Joy to the World, Old Fashioned Love Song, Celebrate. I was a small child when they were in their hayday and they were a little bit "mature" for me. I saw this CD last year and bought it because it had one of my favorite songs on it--Out in the Country. Now I realize that they weren't releasing just the good stuff. This CD is full of fantastic music, from doo-wop to ballads to hard(er) rock. I love the booklet that came with the CD's explaining the background of each song and which member sings each song. If you enjoy Three Dog Night, this is the CD to have.

At their peak, there was not a more popular group than Three Dog Night but the start of this 2 disc set includes pre-Dog material that IMO, should have been left off to make room for more TDN songs. Maybe the only exception to this would be 'Roses and Rainbows' by Danny Hutton because it is the only song I remember ever getting any radio play time. "Celebrate" is good but it misses the mark by leaving out some of their best material like 'Rock and Roll Widow', 'Chest Fever', 'Don't Make Promises' and 'Jam'. Not perfect for the TDN collector but good enough for those who just want a taste.

If you are a Three Dog Night fan or just getting yourself familiar with the group, this is a great album to get. Even if you own all the regularly issued Three Dog Night albums, this one has a lot of single tracks that were hits and are indeed the single mixes. Many of Three Dog Night's single tracks were slightly different mixes from the song versions that appeared on albums. For example, the mixes to "Black and White" and "Joy to the World" are different. The 45 mixes are better as presented here.

Purhcasers of this set will also get a sampling of several album tracks such as "You," "Cowboy" and "Midnight Runaway". Also appearing are "Going in Circles", the B-side to "Family of Man" and the funky "Our B-side" which was a B-side to the single "Shambala" I believe. All great music.

The CD set is superbly packaged with very good liner notes and track information.

About the only thing that I can find fault with this collection are the songs that they left off... namely "Sunlight" from the "Naturally" album and "Rock n Roll Widow" from the still-out-of-print album, "It Ain't Easy." Otherwise this is a great compilation.

"Celebrate: The Three Dog Night Story, 1965 - 1975" is an improvement over previous T.D.N. compilations, but it could have been better.

THE PLUSES: In addition to excellent liner notes featuring song- by-song comments from the band members themselves, this collection includes five early "pre-Dog Night" recordings, as well as the 45 versions of many Three Dog Night favorites. Some of these 45 versions, most noteably "Liar," differ greatly from their LP counterparts. This collection also features the original mono 45 mix of "Shambala," rather than the muddy fake-stereo version used on previous compilations (Thought you were hearing this song in authentic stereo? Check again.)

THE MINUSES: The album tracks included here are of limited interest. Let's face it: Three Dog Night was a SINGLES band. "Eli's Coming" is the 45 version, but it's missing a guitar overdub. "Pieces of April" is in mono, and is identified in the liner notes as the 45 version, but there is no discernible difference between this and the stereo version on the "Seven Separate Fools" LP, so why not include this song in stereo? This collection also favors the "Harmony" LP a little too heavily: Seven of the ten tracks from that album are included here, while the "Captured Live at The Forum," "Around The World with Three Dog Night" and "American Pastime" LPs have gone unrepresented.

Fans can always complain about what was left off of a collection. Those are the fans that probably need to buy the original albums and leave it alone. For those of us who purchased the singles for Three Dog Night (and some of their early albums) when they came out this is a perfect collection of the band's 18 Top 20 hits, key album tracks and rarities.

The CD collection opens with early singles/songs recorded by Danny Hutton (when he was a staff writer at Hanna-Barbara the production company responsible for "Scooby Doo" and "Josie and the Pussycats" cartoons), Cory Wells with his band The Enemies (whose sign off was "Love Thy Enemy")and a demo featuring the trio of singers produced by Brian Wilson ("Time to Get Alone").We then jump into tracks from their first album and singles including a cover of Traffic's "Heaven is in Your Mind", Elton John's "Lady Samantha" (before he became a star in the U.S.) and other classic tracks.

The second disc takes off with Hoyt Axton's classic "Never Been To Spain" and continues through the band at their peak until about the 16th track. The last couple of tracks are from less successful releases but no less worthy.

Sound quality is exceptional with many of the original stereo and mono mixes used (the band and producers selected the best sounding mixes for inclusion). The album is beautifully remastered by Bill Inglot and Dan Hirsch. The original selections sound terrific. There's also an 18 page booklet with comments from the band and complete original credits. If you only want their hits the single disc collection is probably the way to go but that overlooks many of their fine albums tracks and songs that didn't quite chart. With 43 songs from from 1965 (when the early singles/demos were recorded)until 1983 (the band's last album--yeah I know it's subtitled 1965-1975 but the anthology goes beyond the salad days of the band)this truly is the best collection available. Although Edsel has reissued many of these as 2fers on Cd the sound quality is inferior on many of them.

Formed in 1967 by Cory Wells, Danny Hutton and Chuck Negron the band was unusual from the start--they performed the best songs by OTHER writers. It was a perfect approach for three lead singers that allowed the best songs to be recorded without bruising too many egos early on. The trio fo singers recruited musicians that they had known and played with over the years to fill out the band and by April of 1969 had their first top ten single a cover of Harry Nilsson's classic "One". From there the band had a string of hits including their cover of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not To Come" (#1), "Joy to the World" (Hoyt Axton a fishing buddy of Cory's), "Black & White", "Eli's Coming" (Laura Nyro), "Shambala", "Sure As I'm Sitting Here" (John Hiatt) and others.