Rolling Stone‘s interview series Last Man Standing features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and musicians who are the last remaining members of iconic bands. In some cases, they are the only classic-era member in the current touring lineup. In others, they are the only ones still alive. In either case, the task of keeping the torch lit has fallen onto their shoulders, whether they wanted that responsibility or not.
If you turned on the radio at just about any point between 1969 and 1974, it was rare more than a few minutes passed before a Three Dog Night song came on. Their run of hits — including “Joy to the World,” “One,” “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” “Black and White,” and “Never Been to Spain” — helped them sell millions of records, and made them the first rock band since the Beatles to regularly headline baseball stadiums in America.
But unlike CSNY, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and other stadium acts that followed in their wake, the members of Three Dog Night were far from household names, even at the peak of their fame. That’s partially because they didn’t have a singular frontman, and instead divided vocal duties between Chuck Negron, Danny Hutton, and Cory Wells.
Their reliance on outside songwriters also played a role in their diminished critical esteem, even though they had an incredible ear for talent, completely re-arranged the songs in the studio, and helped introduce visionaries like Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Laura Nyro, Paul Williams, Hoyt Axton, and even Elton John to mass audiences, forever changing the course of music history.
“It was the era of the singer-songwriter when everybody had to write their own songs and tell all their personal feelings,” Hutton, 84, tells Rolling Stone via Zoom from his home in Los Angeles. “And I think that’s fine, but I didn’t come from that era. Also, some bands are perfect at one thing. They do country, and it’s fabulous. I liked to do a great country song, but man, I wanted to kick ass and do a grungy thing. I wanted to do a blues song. I wanted to do a ballad. I didn’t want to be trapped in one musical thing. And that hurt us a lot. People say, ‘Well, who are you? You don’t have a backstory.’ It wasn’t like, ‘You’re a blues guy from down south and that’s what you do.’ We were interpreters. People didn’t get that.”
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During the glory days of Three Dog Night, Negron, Hutton, and Wells were joined by guitarist Michael Allsup, keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon, drummer Floyd Sneed, and bassist Joe Schermie. But Hutton and Allsup are the only two left alive, and Hutton has been keeping the group going with an entirely new lineup, which includes his sons Dash Hutton and Timothy Hutton (not the actor), since Allsup retired in 2021.
“I want to put this politely, and I would have had a hard time saying this 10 or 15 years ago, but Three Dog Night started as my group,” Hutton says. “It was always my group. I formed this whole idea. I was the one who had hits on the charts before we started. I was the one who was friends with Brian Wilson, and made things happen for us. And now, today, I’ve found the best people I can to serve Three Dog Night songs. It’s different, but I’m very proud of what we’re doing.”
Hutton’s family moved to Boston from Buncrana, Ireland, when he was two years old, and then permanently resettled in Los Angeles when he was 11. “I’ve had, sweet Christ, three accents,” he says. “I had an Irish accent, a Boston accent, and I moved to California, where they don’t really have an accent.”
In Boston, his mother operated a boardinghouse, and one of the rooms was rented out to notorious hitman Elmer “Trigger” Burne, who played a pivotal role in the infamous Great Brink’s Robbery of 1950 where $2.775 million ($37.1 million today) was stolen from the Brink’s building. “We had police protection for six months, Irish cops coming 24 hours a day,” says Hutton. “So after six months, my mother said, ‘I’m sick of this.’ She didn’t say, ‘Let’s go to L.A.’ She said, ‘Let’s go to Hollywood.'”
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They had just $400 when they got off the train in L.A. Hutton’s mother worked as a waitress until she was hit by a car on Hollywood Boulevard, broke her leg, and collected enough money in a lawsuit to buy a house in Beachwood Canyon, beneath the Hollywood sign.
This placed adolescent Danny right in the center of 1950s Hollywood. When he walked to school every day, it wasn’t uncommon for him to catch a glimpse of Liberace, Lucille Ball, I Love Lucy actor William Frawley, parody artist Spike Jones, B-movie director Ed Wood, television horror host Vampira, Elvis Presley friend/bodyguard Red West, and Blackbird Jungle actor Dan Terranova.
Hutton has a vivid memory of seeing Blackbird Jungle at the Pantages Theater in 1955. “Everybody went nuts because it was a violent teen movie with [Bill Haley’s] ‘Rock Around the Clock’ in it,” he says. “And it’s the first time kids heard rock & roll on big speakers. Around the world, Germany, England, they rioted and absolutely rampaged and ruined cinemas.”
He was initially more invested in sports than music, but after bicycling across England and Ireland one summer, and seeing thousands of people scream for Irish showbands, Hutton began thinking about a career in music. “I had bought an acoustic guitar in Belfast,” he says, “and I came back and started taking lessons. That was the start of it.”
Hutton is a Zelig-like figure who was acquainted with all sorts of 1950s icons as a teenager, including legendary photojournalist Earl Leaf, who served as an early mentor. But this was merely setting the stage for his life in the 1960s, where he was somehow friends with nearly every major counter-culture figure on the L.A. scene, culminating in the birth of Three Dog Night near the end of the decade. It started when he landed a job at Disney Studios several years earlier.
What was your life like when you worked at Disney?
I was loading and unloading pallets of LPs at a warehouse. And then I used to hang out at a place called the House of Pancakes across from Liberty Records on Sunset Boulevard, across from Hollywood High School. All the bands would all go there and hang out there, Jan and Dean and the Righteous Brothers. Anyway, Pat and Lolly Vegas, who ended up in Redbone, they said, “You should meet this guy, Kim Fowley.”
So they gave Kim my address, and he actually climbed over my fence. This big bald guy came in and he says, “Oh, my balls!” Kim was crazy and very charming. He ended up living in my attic, and I kind of became his driver. He brought [singer-songwriter] Jackie DeShannon and [producer] Jack Nitzsche over one night to play them this new group, the Beatles. They didn’t even know about them. He turned us into Beatles nuts before they even broke here. They had all these flop records on Swan Records and VJ. Nobody remembers that.
Kim took me to Gold Star when Manfred Mann came into town and they had “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” and Paul Jones was the lead singer. So then I drove Paul and myself and Kim. We went down one night to see T-Bone Walker on Western Avenue. That’s where the blues clubs were. Earl Palmer, the drummer, was down there.
How did Fowley help your career take off?
Kim called me when I was at Disney and he said, “You should go over to Hanna-Barbera. They’re starting a rock & roll record label.” I went over and they handed me a lyric. It was “Hippity Hoppity Kangaroo,” and they said, “Go in the other room and let’s see what we can come up with.” So I went in for half hour, wrote the song, came back and they went, “Okay, we’re going to hire you.”
And I said, “What am I going to do?” They said, “Well, you’re a young guy. You know what’s going on in town.” At the time, what they were starting to do is they would find a local hit someplace in the country, and then they would grab it and put it on their new label. So they said, “Go out and find acts.” I ended up writing, and then doing songs where I would do the drums, I would do the bass, and then if there was a guitar solo, I’d slow the track down and play it, then I would do the lead vocal and all the harmony parts.
Is this how you and your song “Roses and Rainbows” ended up in The Flintstones in 1965?
Yeah. I played them the song. They said, “We really like this. We’re introducing Pebbles and Bam Bam, and we’d like to put you in. it’s the first show of the season. What we’re going to do is we’re going to draw you and Fred and Barney are going to be sitting in Bedrock, and you’re going to come on TV singing ‘Roses and Rainbows.'” I said, “That’s fine with me.”
Then the record ended up being a top 10. But I had never performed live in front of anybody, and they said, “We’re going to put you on American Bandstand.” I was on American Bandstand with the Lovin’ Spoonful, and then they said, “Okay, we got you on a tour.” And they put me on tour with Cesar and Cleo, but Cesar and Cleo changed their name to Sonny and Cher when they had “I Got You, Babe,” which was number one. So that was the start of all of that.
Right at this time, the L.A. scene is blowing up with new groups like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield.
Yeah. I moved to Laurel Canyon probably in ’64 up on Weepah Way. And one day these guys come up the street, they rented houses almost next to each other, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. So I got to be friends with them. And it’s funny, Neil was dressed in this black leather outfit with fringes. And I really liked Stephen. He’s very talented. So that was the start of the whole scene. Mark Volman from the Turtles lived up the street.
I ended up doing a TV show where I met this dancer named June Fairchild. We dated and she moved in. Her girlfriend was Mimi Machu, who also was a dancer, and she lived above us. Her boyfriend was Jack Nicholson. Jack was a writer at the time with Roger Corman. Jack used to come down with Harry Dean Stanton, and Harry would come with his guitar and bang out songs. I remember buying Revolver and listening to it on the floor with speakers on both sides of me. Jack smoked a joint and heard the album for the first time.
Everyone says Buffalo Springfield was better in concert than on record.
Oh yeah. I went to one or two of their sessions and the production was not good. When you saw them in person, you say, “Wow, they’re better than the record.” On the records, the quality didn’t come through.
But I knew that whole scene. I was here when that writer in New York [Tom Wolfe] came over to interview Timothy Leary [for The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]. I got a knock on the door that was this guy in a white suit looking for him.
Wow. So how did you become friends with Brian Wilson?
I was fiddling around, doing demos at Gold Star, and he walked past. I had been a huge fan of the Beach Boys. I maybe just shook his hand or something. But later, I left Hanna-Barbera and went to MGM with Frank Zappa. And my manager was David Anderle at the time. He called me up and said, “Danny, I just got a job. I’m the president of Brother Records. Do you want to meet Brian Wilson?” I went, “God, are you kidding?”
So I went to meet Brian, and we got along great. He was a real sweetheart. We really clicked and I ended up being one of about four or five people that all hung out together. He had this crazy house. It was very innocent, but everybody was doing marijuana and pep pills. I remember once we sat down at a table and he said, “Everybody ready?” I went, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, you see all the silverware there? We’re going to just start hitting things.” And he recorded all the sounds we were getting. He was very adventurous.
Weren’t you there when he made Pet Sounds?
Yeah. He said to me one evening, “Hey, come on down a session. Come on down to Western. I’ll be recording.” So I went down and I walked in and I just heard this beautiful soundtrack, and I thought, “Wow, that is just gorgeous.” And then he stopped it and he said, “Okay, let’s take a break.” And I said, “Break? That’s done.” He said, “No, no, no, that’s not done.” I thought it was just an instrumental.
Then he came back and he added a French horn from a guy in a corner. The song had three accordions on it. It had all this crazy stuff. So I never even heard the melody. And at the end of the song, Hal Blaine, the drummer, pulled out a little box and he said, “Hey, Brian, what about putting this on an overdub on the drum?” It was like a big chopstick hitting a bottle with orange juice in it that he put tape around. He clicked it and did this rhythmic thing on it. If you hear “God Only Knows” after I told you that, it’s all you’re going to hear. It’s a plastic orange bottle.
It’s like you got to watch Da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa or something by witnessing that session.
Yeah. Then he takes me in the hallway and he says, “Danny, I just wrote this thing. What do you think?” He sits at an upright piano in the hall and he sings, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older…”
And later I thought, my God, I was there hearing these songs before they were released by him. And I can’t emphasize, here’s the Wrecking Crew. They’re these 30-year-old guys and they played with Sinatra and everything. And he was in complete control of everybody, in a good way. He would sit there and go, “Ready guys? Okay, start. One, two.” And they’d start, maybe four seconds, “Hold it, hold it. Come on, tempo. Let’s get the tempo right. Hey, tune up, Bob, you’re out of tune.” He was like a commander.
But then if somebody said, “Hey Brian, what if I did this?” he’d go, “Let’s try it. Cool, I love it.” I learned so much, and he’d come over to the board and [engineer] Chuck Britz would be mixing, and he’d go over and go, “No, turn that up, boom, boom, boom.” I love the Beatles, but no one could do what Brian did. He wrote, arranged, produced, engineered. That album obviously had a co-writer [Tony Asher] doing all the lyrics, but some of the songs that he wrote, like “Caroline, No” and “’Til I Die.”
They’re just devastating.
They’re fabulous. He was my mentor. That was the start for me. What I learned mainly from him was how good something had to sound in the studio. That whole thing from the Buffalo Springfield, I knew that something was wrong. It helped me earlier. I was at RCA Studios and I wrote a song called “Funny Love Can Be.” Frank Zappa was there for it. When I got it home, I thought, “Where’s all the bottom? There’s no bottom on this, the big sound.”
I went back and I said to the engineer, “What happened to the bottom?” He said, “You never had bottom. Let me take you in the other room and let me play you something I just recorded a couple of days ago, and you want to hear some good bottom.” I go in there and he plays me “Satisfaction.” I went, “I got it.” My clothes were flapping.
So how did Three Dog Night form?
The history has been kind of rewritten a little bit, but I formed Three Dog Night. On the Sonny and Cher tour, Corey [Wells] was in their opening band called the Enemy’s. And I said, “That guy has got a great blues voice.” And my theory always has been get people around you that are better than you. I think B people hire C people because they kind of want to stay up there as boss. A people hire A-minus people.
But if you’re good at what you do, make it better. Get people better than you. Don’t worry about it, get the best lawyer, get the best musicians. Yeah, they play better than you, but you know what? Be the guy that makes the phone calls. Be the guy with the ideas. There’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s different if somebody phones and says, “Hey, you want to join my band or my idea?” I was always the guy going, “Hey, hey, I got an idea. You want to, boom, come over to my project?”
And know thy weakness. I know my weaknesses. That’s a humble way of saying I know my strengths. So that’s what I did. Things cooled down with me as a solo act and then I learned all the stuff with Brian. I like to collect cars. That sounds fancy Nancy, but I used to always buy cars and sell them for more. And I always loved beautiful cars, one of a kind, cars that get bad reviews and no one bought them, and they get bad reviews because they were so different.
And so I went to Concours d’Elegance at the Biltmore Hotel on Western, and they had all these cars outside. And they had three or four cars and they were all different and they were all incredible. And I thought, wow, because I used to always do three-part harmony, all the harmony. I thought, “So what if I get two other guys, three lead singers?” And that was the start of it.
It was a good idea.
At Motown, they’d have five great singers, but they’d have one guy up front and three or four guys dancing in the background. And I always thought that on one recording, you can use many singers. Our band had four musicians and three singers, but actually we were three horn players. I always said, “If you’re singing background, sing like you’re the lead singer. I want the power out on your voice.” Everybody said, “You guys, man, you had a big fat harmony,” because there was nobody leaning back with a Mickey Mouse falsetto.
How did you meet Chuck Negron?
I phoned Corey when he was in a blues band later on. I said, “Corey, I’d like to get this band together,” and we looked for a tenor. We thought about Billy Joe Royal and a couple of other guys who could really sing high. But I met Chuck at a party at the Whisky a Go Go. Afterwards, there was a party up in the Hills thrown by Brian Epstein. There were no Beatles there, but Jeff Beck was there and Frank Zappa came and did a whole presentation to Brian Epstein.
And Chuck was there. I just met him and I didn’t know much about him, but he was very charming, and we slowly became friends. He told me he was on Columbia Records and he played me a song called “Dear John.” And I liked his voice, and I knew he had a high voice, but I didn’t know how versatile he was.
I had Corey come up to my house, and then I invited Chuck up and I said, “Hey, come on up. I got a buddy. Let’s just jam.” So we basically auditioned him. He didn’t know it. It was a good way to find out different styles. I didn’t want to do one of those uptight auditions. So we got him to sing all sorts of songs, and we went, “God, that guy has got it.” So that was how we started.
You nearly recorded “Darlin'” for Brian Wilson on Brother Records before the group took off. What happened there?
I told Brian about us, and Brian said, “Come on up to the house.” He was living in Bel-Air, and he’d bought Edgar Rice Burroughs’ house, and painted it purple. And he had a full-grown studio there. So we went up, and Brian, at the time, he loved the Beach Boys and all that stuff, but he wanted to try a boutique kind of a thing. He wanted to start producing some other people and just experiment.
And the thing with us is we could sing anything, any style, and I think he wanted something kind of funky. And Beach Boys, I loved their harmony, but that’s more Four Freshmen kind of stuff. He wanted to expand with us. So he said, “Look guys, I got two songs. One is called ‘Time to Get Alone,’ and the other one I wrote for you, Danny, because you say ‘Darling’ a lot. So Danny, check this out.”
So we recorded the two songs and we put on rough vocals. We didn’t have the vocals all really done or anything like that. And the Beach Boys came back from tour, and Mike Love, who was kind of a tour manager kind of guy, and he — rightly so; I would have done what he did — said, “What are you doing? That song is a hit. We need it. We’re the Beach Boys. What are you fussing around with these other unknown guys?”
A lot of people presented it as if Mike was some villain. [Editor’s note: This is how Negron framed it in his 1999 memoir Three Dog Nightmare.] I don’t think he was a villain at all. He just was doing his best interest. That sounds like a very selfish word, but if you make a deal with somebody and it’s in your best interest and it’s in their best interest, that’s good. “Best interest” is only bad when it’s really bad for the other person. But for us, it ended up being Three Dog Night, so I can only thank him.
Where did things go for the group from there?
We went through a couple of different musicians. Our manager, after Brian wasn’t working with us, said, “Go out and get a band. You don’t want to be three vocalists and go out and have a bunch of hired bands behind you. Become a band.” So that’s what we did.
Later, they all started calling us a cover band, and we were never a cover band. We resurrected songs that never were hits, except for “Try a Little Tenderness.” So we all sat down and brought out all our records and ideas of songs that should have been hits.
We played a couple places, but really couldn’t get much done because everybody said, “Yeah, you’re good, you’re unknown, but you’re not playing any hits for covers.” And we said, “Well, we want to do these kind of songs.” So then our managers set us up at the Troubadour in the afternoon and brought a couple of record companies. And after we finished our set, Jay Lasker from ABC Dunhill came over to us and said, “I love you guys. I think you’re great live, and I’d love to sign you. I want to get this record out as soon as possible.” And I said, “Well, that’s good, but we don’t have any songs yet.” And he said, “No, what you just did.” We said, “What? That?” And he said, “Yeah, I love it.” So that was the start of it.
You picked out some amazing songs for that first record, like “The Loner” by Neil Young.
Yeah. Neil came down to the Whisky with this little amplifier, and he played “The Loner” to me and I just said, “Yeah, that’s cool.” Then I went to help him lift this little amp that had this great sound, and it weighed about a thousand pounds. It had been customized. I said, “This guy knows what he’s doing.”
I also found a Beatles song that they hadn’t ever recorded, and they gave it to Cilla Black, called “It’s For You,” which was a waltz. And I did that whole vocal arrangement, the a cappella. I always said, “If you’re going to do a cover song, you can’t do it the way the other artists did it or else it is just karaoke.”
Danny Whitten is such a great songwriter too. You used his song “Let Me Go.”
Danny was also a guy I was thinking of as a possible third singer for Three Dog Night. When I lived in Laurel Canyon, the Rockets lived up the street. They became Crazy Horse. He wasn’t quite the tenor we needed, but he was the sweetheart. I remember going over there. They finally moved out into the valley and I was over at their little house. They had just finished “Cinnamon Girl.”
I just feel so sad for Danny. Danny really got into heroin. And then after a party at my house, my guitar was missing, and he sold it. I left a scathing note to him. I was sad angry. Then he went out and OD’d. Neil wrote that song about it.
“The Needle and the Damage Done.”
Yeah. He died right after I kicked him out of the house. I felt really horrible. He was a sweet guy.
You can’t blame yourself.
I know.
Harry Nilsson’s “One” was the song that really broke you guys big. How did that happen?
The first single was “Nobody,” and then the second one was “Try a Little Tenderness.” And “Tenderness” was a song that we covered. Corey loved Otis Redding. So it got to 50 or 60 on the charts. But you must remember Otis Redding covered Frank Sinatra. That was the cover of a cover. And then Aretha covered Otis on “Respect.” We’ve all done covers.
Anyway, then “One” started getting a lot of reaction. And after it became a hit I used to go to London and I stayed at the Britannia Hotel. I’d usually go in December because I was a bachelor and I would go over there for Christmas. So I got a knock on my door and I opened the door and it’s Harry Nilsson.
I’d never met him. And he said, “Danny, I want to thank you, man, for making me a lot of bread. I loved your version of ‘One.'” And he said, “What are you staying in this dump for? Come on over to where I am.” He was on King’s Road. And he said, “There’s a flat below me that’s available.” So that’s where I ended up spending every Christmas. That’s how I met Harry. And Harry ended up bringing Ringo and John Lennon to my house during the Lost Weekend. That was a crazy time.
To go back a bit, you covered “Lady Samantha” before most anyone had heard of Elton John. How did that happen?
I knew him. I knew Reggie Dwight.
How?
When I was in England at that flat, I went to Dick James Music looking for songs. And they said, “You need to meet Reggie Dwight. And he’s got a lyricist, Bernie [Taupin].” So Reggie came over and he played me “Bad Side of the Moon” and some other songs. I went, “Wow, this guy is great.” So next time I saw him, I said, “We’re playing at the Revolution in London, so why don’t you come on down with Bernie?”
So he came down and I’m doing the set, and afterwards I thought, “Oh, he didn’t come.” And then the doorman came up to me and said, “Hey, these two guys are here and they weren’t on the guest list. I didn’t let them in.” I went, “Oh, fuck.” And there’s a bar downstairs, and they were down in the bar having a drink.
So we really bonded. I said, “God, I love your song.” And he said, “Oh, yeah, I want to be this songwriter and I love doing that.” Then he started singing along to some of the songs that were playing in the background. I said, “Oh, you’ve got a great voice.” He went, “Ah, that’s not really my thing. I’m a songwriter.”
I just ended up being really good friends, and I think his first transatlantic phone call was between us. And then when he came to L.A., when he first came in town, so I took him to his first L.A. restaurant, the Black Rabbit. And he came up to the house and just played piano all night. Then obviously the Troubadour thing happened.
Going back a bit, Bernie and Elton have always said “Lady Samantha” was the first song they wrote they were really proud of. It’s amazing that’s the one you guys picked.
Yeah. He sent me a four-page letter, which I have. And it was before his career really took off. He just said, “Danny, thank you so much. The royalties from that song kept Bernie and I paying the rent and eating food.”
So I know him on that level. And then when he was in town, he sent me “Your Song” and a bunch of the other demos, so we covered it on [our third album] It Ain’t Easy. We did a pretty good version, but it was before he released his. And I think we had one or two hits already. I thought, “His version is great and I would hate just because of our popularity that people would mindlessly buy it. God, that’s really going to cut into his career.” So we didn’t release it [as a single]. And obviously, his was fabulous anyway, but I didn’t want to get in the way.
Then I brought him over to Brian’s house, and he was a huge fan of Brian’s. So, when we got to the gate and pushed the button, Brian answered by singing the first verse of “Your Song.” And Elton just about collapsed. We had a great evening.
With Laura Nyro’s “Eli’s Coming,” you also picked up on a young talent very early.
We heard that on the radio, and she was great. I accidentally changed some of the lyrics. We did it a little differently from hers. I remember I got a knock on the door when we were looking for songs for the second album and it was Danny Whitten. He came over and he was on White Whale Records with Mark Volman from the Turtles. Danny said, “Here’s a song I think you guys would really like, but we can’t do it. It’s got strings on it and it’s got a big night out kind of thing.” And it was “Celebrate.” So, Danny gave me the demo for “Celebrate.”
Why do you think the critics didn’t get you guys?
I grew up with the music of big bands from the 1940s. My point of view was always musical. And the critics were going, ‘Well, yeah, look, they’re having all these hits because they’re doing all these cover songs.’ I used to say, ‘That song was not a hit. That was an album cut that never happened on their album.’ Randy Newman said that ‘Mama Told Me Not to Come’ would never have been a hit without us. We made that song a hit.”
I thought about it afterwards and I know some of the writers, and I think I saw it differently later. We were such a hot band. We were the first guys to do stadiums after the Beatles, before anybody. So we were huge, and there’s always that backlash.
I know you weren’t happy with your Rolling Stone cover story.
I see it from a writer’s point of view, they went, “Oh, let’s concentrate on the management and how this operates.” It’s almost thinking like a boy band kind of the mentality, like we were groomed. But man, man, this was my baby.
In the studio, we never used outside musicians. We’d have a guest maybe play an instrument, but that was our band on every song. We didn’t use ringers. Our band kicked ass. We kicked ass. Technically, whether you liked it or not, we could sing anything, play anything.
And with three singers, there wasn’t one focal point like most bands.
And that got me in trouble in a way. As I said, I was kind of the middle guy. I was the guy that was a little bit of the referee when songs would come in. In general, both of them want to sing them. I would always look at who I thought could do it the best, present it the best. And I would usually be the tiebreaker and go, “You know what? I think you should do it.” They grudgingly agreed, but that ended up meaning they sang a lot of more of the hits than I did. And there’s that perception with the public that that’s kind of the leader of the band, the people who sing most of the hits.
Tell me about meeting Jimi Hendrix. I know you jammed with him.
Jimi came down and played with us and blew our mind. And then Michael [Allsup] went to a jam session and Jimi played bass. Michael played lead. In New York, we double dated at a club called the Hippopotamus, no longer there. And he was just the sweetest guy. I mean, he was so humble. We both had models, these beautiful girls, and we were at this small table. He leans over and he said something to the girl and she backed up like she was surprised. And he went, “Does my breath smell?”
He was just gentle. What a talent. I was backstage. We did a festival and before he went on, he was backstage and he was tuning and he didn’t have his guitar all in tune. He went out and when he hit certain notes, he just bent them into tune. The guitar was like another part of his body.
Chuck quickly became a pretty severe drug addict. That must have made your life pretty tough for the group to handle.
Yeah. That whole thing started with Chuck really liking cough syrups. In the early days he had me do it once with him and it was like, “Whoa, I can’t do that again. I don’t think my liver liked that.”
When cocaine came into the scene in Laurel Canyon, it was just wonder drug. Before that, everyone was taking pep pills or methadone or black beauties, speed. And they came with a horrible comedown. I’m not talking about people shooting up. I never shot up, none of that stuff. But then all of a sudden they get introduced to cocaine and it’s like, “Oh, my God, it feels so good. The next day there’s no come down and you can work.”
And then obviously, it wasn’t that innocent. It got darker and you’d have to start taking a pill because you got so wired on it and you’re up for days. And then heroin came into the scene. I never messed with that. And that’s when the guns and the thugs started coming in. It got very dark. And then Chuck and our keyboard player, Jimmy [Greenspoon]… I don’t know if they started snorting or whatever. I think Jimmy started first with Johnny Winter. I think they both fiddled with it for a moment. Anyway, I shouldn’t be saying this stuff. I don’t want to get in trouble.
We can move on. Were you surprised when “Joy to the World” hit so big? It’s a somewhat strange song to hit number one.
I thought it was nuts. Hoyt Axton had the same manager as us. They put him on tour with us as an opening act. So we got to know Hoyt. We would be on a tour bus and he would follow us in a big black Cadillac. And he was like our bodyguard. You got to remember in ’69 and ’70, you were down in Dallas, Texas, and if you had long hair, you’d likely be beaten up. They’d say, “You girl, what are you doing?” And we had a Black drummer [Floyd Sneed]. Nobody really thinks about it, but we were one of the first integrated bands.
So anyway, we became really good friends with Hoyt. He was doing a children’s album, and Michael [Allsup] and Joe Schermie, our bass player, went to some demo session he was doing, and they heard “Joy to the World.” He wanted to do a children’s hour TV special, and it didn’t happen, so he was just farming out the songs individually.
Hoyt had this big deep baritone voice, and he sang the song to us in the studio and I went, “What the hell is that?” Chuck said, “Well, you know what? Let’s just have fun with it.” We thought, “Well, let’s just put it on the album.”
We started arranging it, and then Michael came up with doing a modulation on the outro going out, and we said, “Man, that sounds pretty good.” Then we forgot about it, and I think we released two singles first, and then the radio people went nuts. It was number one for six weeks on the charts. I think it sold 10 million records, finally, finally. So, you just never know.
It’s astounding when you look at how many hits you had in a short period of time. Everything you touched turned to gold.
We had 21 Top 40 hits. We don’t get credit. I think the only album that really got a good review in Rolling Stone was the Harmony album [in 1971]. Bud Scoppa did a very nice review on it,
Why did you leave the band in 1975? What happened?
I was burned out. I completely stopped. We stopped working with [producers] Richie Podolor and Bill Cooper even though they were like magic to me. One of the other members was like, “Yeah, let’s use somebody else.” So I really wasn’t participating in any of the mixing or choosing. I was pretty rock and roll, having my fun. I had a party house and everyone in the world was there. It was Lennon, Ringo, [Doug] Weston, [Blue Sky Records founder] Steve Paul, Tom Waits.
Tom Waits came when he was kind of forming himself. He was living in Silver Lake, and Tom and I, we went to a Beverly Hills party, and he did not want to know about it. He was just doing his On the Road kind of thing. But it was also Warren Beatty, Billy Preston, David Cassidy. Oh, do you remember Paul Getty, the guy who got kidnapped?
Sure. J. Paul Getty’s grandkid.
He slept on my couch for a week when he was in Italy. He came to L.A. with his mother and they were suing the old man, because they weren’t paying any money. He had no place to stay, so he slept on my couch for a week with his girlfriend. I remember my mother liked him, so she went up the street to the Canyon store and then brought him a pack of Player’s cigarettes.
I just stopped showing up to the studio. And I was so far gone that once I passed out at home and was gone for so long that when I woke up my left arm and my leg were not really working. I had some friends help me, and I went up to my bedroom and I looked in the mirror at myself and it snapped. I was smoking two packs a day. I was drinking and taking different drugs. No needles or any of that stuff, but I was completely non-functioning. I just said, “I’m done.”
Then a dealer came up to my house with an ounce of cocaine and he said, “Well, here, Danny.” I said, “I’m done.” I put it in the cupboard underneath the bathroom sink. He came back a week later with a scale. And he said, “Let’s weigh it.” And I said, “It weighs the same.” He said, “You didn’t touch it?” I said, “I’m done. I’m done with drugs. I’m done with smoking. I’ve got to get healthy.” And he said, “Did you cut it?” No. So that was the start of getting clean. And then I moved into Alice Cooper’s old house, and I’ve been living here since ’77.
What happened after you got clean?
It was the start of my next life. I spent a year where I started exercising, walking, running, all of that stuff. And then I went into the Troubadour and I saw this punk band called Fear. And I went, “Oh my God, what is this?” And I just loved them. So I ended up managing Fear and I got into the whole scene with X, Redd Kross, all of the [L.A. punk] bands.
Three Dog Night reunited in 1981. How did that happen?
That’s because we got a call that somebody was going to do a big bogus tour of the Far East using our name. So we all got together at a conference and started talking to each other and decided to do it again. We did not know that Chuck was really still on heroin. So that lasted a while, and Chuck constantly was going to the dentist who couldn’t figure it out. We were starting a big tour and he was in the back of the bus and said, “I’ve got to go… I can’t finish the tour.” So we were just furious. We were in the hole for getting sued for a lot of promoters and stuff like that. And then Chuck spent just years in the wilderness and to his credit, I think he went into 20 different places and he finally found a place called CRI-Help and he came out of it. I really admire him for that. He came out of it.
Why didn’t he ever rejoin the group?
Because we were almost going to get back together again, but he married a girl whose father owned I think the merchandising franchise to all the basketball teams. So he had plenty of money. So we got lawyers involved and lawyers poisoned the well, that’s all I can tell you. We couldn’t make it work again.
But you made peace with him before he died, right?
I did, yes. Actually we’re doing a documentary and in the documentary you can see them saying, “Would you ever get back together with Chuck?” And I said, “No, never.” And then when I found out he was really in bad shape and he was dying, I just thought, “What am I doing?” So then it was great. We hugged.
How did that feel?
Wonderful for the both of us. Healing. We started talking about all the times we missed, that we could have been together.
Do you regret you didn’t do that much earlier?
Yeah. But at the time he was angry, almost angry like an ex-wife or something. He would just say horrible things about me. And I don’t mean to put us on the same level, but it was like Lennon and McCartney…even Keith and Mick. It was hurtful things. And I didn’t really respond. I always think of hurt. I mean, anger comes from hurt. I think he was hurt and then I was hurt because he was saying that, but he was saying that because he was hurt.
Did his book upset you?
Well, [Three Dog Night] keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon wrote a book too. Autobiographies are self-centered and not in a bad way. And I know at my age, some things that you believe happened, you find out later, that didn’t happen that way. It’s human nature. A lot of it was factual, and then there was some things that we remember differently.
Losing Cory Wells in 2015 must have been really hard too.
Oh, yeah. Vocally, very, very, very few people could do what he could do. He was an incredible voice. He could do the bluesiest thing and he can go into the sweetest falsetto. We had bumped heads on different ways to do things. I think I’m good at the big picture of seeing things, and he was a man of the moment. He’d get emotional. We did bump heads on directions to go and the setlist, that kind of stuff. We just had different philosophies on that, but he was a one of a kind singer.
When Michael stopped touring, you became the last founder still in the band.
Yeah. We’re still working. Our audience, in general, is not there to hear new songs, even though we’re working on a new album. And we really needed a guy that could be blues, but could sing high, do the whole thing. So I was thinking about getting a guy and Steve Perry recommended, saying, “Get this guy, his name is Woody Mankowski. This guy kicks ass.” So Woody is with us now.
And 10 years ago, five years ago, we were kind of like a jukebox doing old songs. And I really was lazy about singing. So when Woody came in and when we were rehearsing, I went, “Holy crap.” Some of the songs we take turns singing verses. I said, “I can’t follow that guy the way I’m singing.” So I started going from my house every day up to Mulholland and driving for an hour or two singing and doing vocal lessons. And it’s improved my singing incredibly out of fear. I’m singing better than I’ve ever sang. Believe it or not, I’m singing higher than I’ve ever sung.
It’s not any of those Mickey Mouse falsettos. And I’m amazed. So anybody coming to see us, we’re the real thing. For example, we’re doing [Nik Kershaw’s] “Wouldn’t It Be Good” that [my old band] Danny Hutton Hitters recorded on the Pretty in Pink soundtrack. And it kicks bottom.
The last Three Dog Night album was in 1976. You say you’re working on a new one?
We’re in a process now. We’ve finished the album. Then we went out and we tested some of them and then realized…no. I wrote a lot of this stuff and I was trying to sound modern. So I revisited it and we’re going to finish it up. And Woody’s an incredible sax player, so that’s really broadened our sound. He’s like Junior Walker, the real deal.
When was the last time you saw Brian Wilson?
About two or three weeks before he died. My wife and I went over to his house and he’s sitting in a chair. And when I walked in, the first thing he said to me is he said, “Danny, sing ‘Going in Circles.'” That’s a song that we did that was in the movie called X Y & Zee with Elizabeth Taylor in it. And if you get a chance, listen to the lyrics in that song, it says how he was feeling.
And I said, “I don’t want to do an a cappella. Let’s do it on the piano.” He says, “Oh, I’m not playing the piano.” And I was really worried then because he would come over to my house or I’d go to his house and he always, when he talked, went over the piano and started tickling it and talking. It was part of his little crutch. I thought, “Oh my God, he’s not playing that.” I knew something was up, but what a legend.
I remember one story where Alice Cooper had a party in the Beverly Hills Hotel. So afterwards Brian says, “Come on, let’s go to my house.” So I went to his house and he was playing a song and then Alice Cooper and Iggy [Pop] came in and he looked at me and he looked at them and he said, “Come on, let’s sit down.” We’re sitting and Iggy was standing and he said, “Let’s do Shortnin’ Bread.” He gave everybody parts and we’re all singing “Shortnin’ Bread.” And finally, I think they got fed up and said, “See you later.” But I always thought if someone could have seen the situation…
You have so many amazing stories. I’m sure we’ve just scratched the surface. Do you ever think about writing a memoir?
Well, the problem for me, everybody’s asked me that, I mean, I got stories. But I think to write a really true book, you have to hurt some people. You have to say things. I don’t want to do that. Yeah, I got stories that would embarrass people, embarrass me.
You could write it and leave it in a safe somewhere for 40 years.
Well, what good’s that going to do me? I’ll embarrass my relatives.
Do you think Three Dog Night will continue after you retire?
Yes, I would like it to. I don’t see why not. People say, “Oh, it’s not the original guys.” What do you mean? That’s not the point. The point is our purpose and what we do, how we perform these songs. I think people should come after I pass, which will not be for a long time. But after we play now, and I wouldn’t say this two years ago, but this new thing now, people are saying, “My God, you guys were hitting the buttons.”
So you never think about retirement or you want to go as long as you can?
I would like to keep going as long as I can. Maybe slow down a little bit, but no, I enjoy it, and people enjoy it. I’ve been in all 50 states and a lot of countries, and you end up going to places you would never ever go to. And sometimes they’re not as good, and sometimes you’re amazed. You go, “God, I never knew this place existed.” So it’s an adventure. I think at my age, you have to have purpose every day and good stress, what I mean by good energy, but stressful, purpose, and be social.
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I read the average American male lives to about 77. But maybe you don’t have a job, maybe you lose your spouse, maybe you’re alone. For so many people, your identity is what you do for a living and you lose that. And I’m so lucky that I have all of this stuff to keep me going. If I’ve got another ten years left, that would be great.
And what I want is a compressed death. I’m not afraid of dying. It’s the transition to death. People are going to go, “He lived to 94,” and the last six years he was in pain on his back in bed. I want people to go, “God, he was fine two weeks ago but he dropped dead.” That’s the way to go. And on my tombstone, I want “Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.”