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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. |
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.)
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Chuck Negron performing with Paul Cowsill (l), Susan
Cowsill, and Billy J. Kramer during the 2016 Happy
Together tour stop in Jacksonville, Fla. |
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.”
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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 75th 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 21st 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.
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| 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.”
