Three Dog Night
Harmony

“Harmony” is a fitting title, especially for a group whose three singers' vocal harmonies are the highlight of their arrangements. But it’s not just about harmonies—there are also vocal chases, counterpoints, verses alternated among them, one each... all the bright and brilliant things you can expect from a lineup formed by three frontmen who, for now at least, get along quite well as they share the stage.

The album opens with “Never Been to Spain” by Hoyt Axton (the same one who wrote “Joy to the World,” a much better song than this), with Cory Wells taking the lead vocals. I have been to Spain, and I was startled by the cucaracha, with their long and lightning-fast legs. I later saw them in New York as well, just as quick. I'll stick to our own little beetles, dark and shy.

Sorry, that was just to feed the Bot's rhetoric. The second song is peculiar, at least for the usually bright and cheerful TDN: it’s called “My Impersonal Life,” written by a certain Terry Furlong, and it’s a tense hard rock piece, with minor-key verses; this solo spotlight goes to Danny Hutton. Luckily, the group’s usual cheerful and pop atmosphere returns immediately with “An Old Fashioned Love Song,” handed to them by renowned songwriter Paul Williams and mostly sung by Chuck Negron.

The mustachioed and talented singer also goes all out on “Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer,” a ballad released just a few months earlier and originally performed by its author, Stevie Wonder. To close out the first side, here’s “Jam,” a funky blues loaded with organ, credited to the group but highly reminiscent of the famous “Gimme Some Lovin’” by the Spencer Davis Group.

Next, they dig into Marvin Gaye's repertoire with a cover of “You,” masterfully performed by Negron, with the other two supporting him with doo woop harmonies and falsettos raining down. With no false modesty, they take on Joni Mitchell and her “Night in the City,” oddly assigned to Danny Hutton, the most “macho” of the three. Indeed, he can’t quite deliver, since he’s less effective than his mates when it comes to falsetto.

This time it’s Moby Grape who get plundered, and grandly so, with “Murder in My Heart for the Judge,” a bluesy rock number in the style of Stephen Stills, brimming with Hammond organ to the brink; the excellent Cory Wells takes his last solo spot here, before handing the reins back to the dominant Negron of this album—both on “The Family of Man,” another Paul Williams creation which leaves little impression, and on the closing “Peace of Mind” by one Nick Woods, a song narcissistically preceded by a short poem from Chuck’s wife, Paula Servetti.

This record is a step back compared to the previous three TDN albums, even though “Never Been to Spain” and “An Old Fashioned Love Song,” its two singles, shot up the charts at the time and held their own.