Three Dog Night was one of the top bands of the '60s and '70s. They produced hit after hit like "Easy To Be Hard," "Old-Fashioned Love Song," and "Joy To The World." One of the band's founding members and its frequent lead singer, Chuck Negron, died at the age of 83 on Monday, February 2, after enduring long-term health issues including COPD and heart failure. According to Variety, Negron's publicist shared that he "died peacefully at his home in Studio City, Calif., surrounded by family."
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Per People, Negron's publicist said in a statement, "Negron was a testament to never giving up - persevering through everything life throws at you, everything you may throw at yourself, and striving on."
Three Dog Night Scored a Bunch of Top 40 Hits
The band launched in 1967 with Chuck Negron, plus two other musicians, Cory Wells and Danny Hutton. They faced some challenges. Skeptics doubted their rock cred because they did not create a lot of their own material.
But Three Dog Night nevertheless landed 21 Top 40 hits, certainly a reliable metric of success. They recorded tracks by some of the premier songwriters of the era like Paul Williams, Randy Newman, Leo Sayer, and Neil Young. The band's first LP was certified platinum. The next seven were all gold. The band had clearly caught on big-time with its audience.
Negron Dealt With Substance Abuse
Per Variety, "Negron estimated that at one point, he was spending $2,000-3,000 a day on drugs and spent millions of dollars on his habit over time." He opted for rehab in the early 1990s.
Negron told Rock Cellar in 2018 that "When I was in rehab back at CRI-Help Rehab 26 years ago, a couple of wonderful things happened to me that gave me faith that I wasn't in this journey of life by myself. I have great faith in myself, but that's because I have the feeling and the belief that I'm being supported by a power that's greater than me. I also receive a great deal of support from my fans, and that's a very powerful thing."
Negron attended to other kinds of healing as well. He and fellow bandmate Danny Hutton reportedly ended their years-long rift last year. (The other Three Dog Night member, Cory Wells, passed away eleven years ago.)
