Three Dog Redemption

Three Dog Night – Danny Hutton (l), Chuck Negron, and
Cory Wells – had 12 gold albums and 21 straight Top 40
hits between 1969 and 1975.

When I go to concerts, I like sitting as close to the stage as possible. I like watching the faces of the performers – Who’s into it and who’s just mailing it in? Do they like playing together? Is the music a joy or a job?

I was lucky enough to get front row seats for last summer’s Happy Together tour – half a dozen acts from the ’60s and ’70s, resurrecting our teen years and reanimating our memories. A Baby-Boomer time machine, at least in theory. It’s hard to expect much from singers nearly 50 years past their prime. 

The revue was huge fun but, as expected, some skills had eroded. A couple of the headliners disguised their rusted pipes by replacing singing with phrasing. One old star looked a bit frightened. But many still “had it.” Flo and Eddie – The Turtles – were loads of fun. The Cowsills, especially Susan, sounded great and had a blast. (Updates following the 2017 Jacksonville show are below.)

Chuck Negron performing with Paul Cowsill (l), Susan 

Cowsill, and Billy J. Kramer during the 2016 Happy
Together tour stop in Jacksonville, Fla.

Then there was Chuck Negron. 

I had no idea what to expect from the old Three Dog Night veteran. When I heard the band some 30 years earlier, Negron was a no-show. His bandmates asked fans for prayers, saying he was seriously sick and in rehab. What was he doing here now? Was he in any shape to sing? Maybe a sympathetic promoter wanted to help him pay a few bills. 

It took just a couple of notes to realize sympathy had nothing to do with it. From any seat in the house, it was obvious Negron’s voice was just as strong as ever. From “Shambala,” to “Joy to the World,” to “Celebrate,” it was fit and powerful, as though immune to age and abuse. From my seat in the front row, though, my eyes were just as surprised as my ears. 

The Chuck Negron who walked out on stage was unrecognizable. Gone was the flowing, shoulder-length hair I still envied after all these years. (Oops – Thou shalt not covet the rock star’s locks.) The huge mustache was trimmed to half its original size. Once rail thin, Negron had a body-builder’s outline under his white jacket. Something else about him, though, grabbed my attention. 

Negron was beaming. His face emanated pure joy. It was unmistakable. “There's a good story here,” I thought. 

By God, there is...

“My dream was to be a successful musician, singer, and I became that,” Negron told me this week in a phone interview. “But I squandered the beauty of that and lost even my family.”

Negron hadn’t just been “seriously sick and in rehab.” He had stolen from family and friends. He had lived on the streets in a cardboard box. Beaten and robbed, left in back alleys, lying in his blood and vomit. By 1991, Negron had been in 37 different drug rehabilitation facilities – many of them multiple times. His last stop was an in-patient facility in Los Angeles.

“I was kicking a 27-year heroin habit,” Negron said. “In this place at that time, there was no detox, no methadone, nothing. You kicked cold.”

Chuck Negron was “messed up all the
time” with Three Dog Night. “I had
no experience touring as a healthy
human being.”

Negron hadn’t slept in weeks. His body and mind were kept awake by the relentless and excruciating pain of heroin withdrawal. A musician friend told Negron to pray to God for help.

Nothing else had worked. Negron was truly at the end of the line. This latest stint in rehab was his last chance. With no money, no place to go, and life-threatening health complications from nearly three decades of drug abuse, death was lurking.

“I got down on my knees and I prayed,” Negron recalled. “My first words were, ‘Please, let me die,’ because I didn’t want to go on. And then I asked, ‘Please give me a minute of relief.’ Then I got up, sat on my bed, and I fell asleep.

“I slept a couple of hours and, when I woke up, the pain had been removed. And I knew right then that God had done for me what I could not do for myself in all those years. It wasn’t just a physical thing, it was a spiritual thing. God had intervened and changed my life.”

Doctors had once told Negron that, even if he beat his addiction, his body was so damaged he still might not survive. And even if he survived, he could never sing again. Yet, he celebrated his 75^th birthday yesterday, the day before this year’s Happy Together tour's first stop. And, although he wears special glasses that deliver oxygen to overcome his emphysema, his voice is as strong as ever.

“I’m 25 years sober,” Negron said. “Anyone who sees me performing now knows I love it, knows I’m filled up with joy. I’m doing something I’m so grateful to be able to do. It’s a very special thing.”

As a child of the ’60s, my 21^st century phone is loaded with songs that are more than 40 and 50 years old. So, yes, I’ll be back in the front row for Sunday’s Happy Together tour stop, pretending away any little ache or pain. Pretending that every singer sounds exactly as they did half-a-century ago. And hearing at least one singer who really does sound the same. When Chuck Negron sings “Joy to the World” now, the joy of God’s grace is splashed all over his face.

###

Notes following the Jacksonville show on 6/11/17:

     1) To be fair, every artist in this year's line-up really did sound the same. Any rust the artists may have accumulated over the years has been knocked-off, polished and buffed. 

Chuck Negron performing "Joy to the
World" during the 2017 Happy Together
tour, June 11, in Jacksonville, Fla.

     2) Chuck Negron is a 75-year old man who suffers from COPD and emphysema. Seventy-five-year-old men with COPD and emphysema get winded walking 10 steps from the couch to the bathroom. During his set, Chuck had to catch his breath while chatting up the audience after his third song, a powerful version of “One.” As a college professor who has taught announcing and its physiology to TV news students, I was bracing for a disaster. Instead, Chuck absolutely killed his finale - “Joy to the World.” He hit every sustained note with full power, earning a huge standing ovation from an audience largely ignorant of his breathing disabilities. Yes, he had help from the hidden oxygen supplement, but that performance was also a “God thing.”