Three Dog Night - Captured Live at the Forum

Recorded live in front of over 18,000 fans September 12, 1969, in Los Angeles, the album captures the band as they run through some of their earlier hits, and a number of covers ... they're all covers, but man, the band would make the songs their own. I found this quite a while ago, and it was in better shape than it first appeared. From what I've read, this is an original pressing, which was cool.

At this stage in their career, the band had only released two albums, and to come out with a live album so soon must have seemed a little weird. Apparently Steppenwolf was recording a number of their shows for a potential live album, and Three Dog Night was opening for them the night this was recorded. As both bands were on Dunhill and they were recording the show anyway, they just got extra tape and captured the opening act as well. Turns out that was a pretty smart move, as the album was a hit and would go gold.

What makes this so cool is that it really is a performance captured live, and you can hear the audience and some back and forth. There are some warts and wobbles and imperfections, and there are gaps between the songs as the band resets. It's a reminder that there was a time when it was about the music, and a band had stage presence or they didn't.

What I really found interesting was how prominent the three vocalists are on the front cover, and on the inside of the gatefold were more pictures of the frontmen, and then in the bottom right were four small pictures of the band. However, on the left side of the gatefold, it was a simple credit page listing the songs, the producer and engineer. When it listed the band, it was just the band; the vocalists, the "three dogs," weren't named.

Mike Allsup on guitar
Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards
Joe Schermie on bass
Floyd Sneed on drums

Since they're on the cover and sang the songs, I may as well give them some credit. Cory Wells, Chuck Negron, and Danny Hutton. Each a frontman in their own right, and together it was magic vocal alchemy that spun out pop gold.

The two big songs here are "One" and "Eli's Coming," which were pretty impressive. I also really got a kick out of their version of The Band's "Chest Fever," which must be a favourite for keyboard players. The band was killing it, and what I found really impressive was how well the three singers worked together. Sometimes acting as a counter or harmony, and then stepping forward as required. I'm sure there were egos at play, but man, it seemed like they really had each other's backs.

It's a little sad that Three Dog Night doesn't get the credit they deserve. Much of this is due to the fact that the band didn't write any of their own material. They were the masters of taking songs and making them their own. Apparently it's okay for a vocalist to cover material and get the accolades, but when a band does it, they're just a cover band. I'm just as guilty of this kind of thinking, and I dismissed the band for a long, long time. I know that for years I remember thinking, what kind of band has seven members and three lead singers?

The live album came out just before the band really hit their commercial peak, and it's a great testament to a band who killed it live. It must have been a sight to see and hear.

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

Billy Rankin - Growin' Up Too Fast

Growin' Up Too Fast was never widely released on CD (if at all), and it was one of the albums I really wanted to get back after a basement flood wiped out my vinyl collection in the '90s (when no one really gave a shit about records, and my insurance gave me a couple hundred bucks for an appraised $10,000 collection). Way back in 1984, my (dearly departed and greatly missed) buddy Dave let me borrow his cassette copy, which included a bonus track of "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." When I eventually bought the album, I didn't know it was a bonus track, or even what a bonus track was. If that sentence was hard to read, just go back and skim it. I'm sure you'll get the gist. I'd find out later Billy was an off-and-on-again member of Nazareth and wrote some absolutely killer songs for them. At the time, though, all I knew was this guy laid it out cold with the opening cut, "Baby Come Back," then proceeded to lay down one killer tune after another bef...

Garfield - Strange Streets

I'd seen this before in the bin, but kept flipping through the stacks. I'd see it a few more times, each time stopping to look at it a little more. There was something kind of cool about the cover where the stylized Celtic knot had the dotted yellow line - it was a strange street for sure. I pulled the record out of the jacket and I was struck by the centre image. There was the familiar Mercury label, the same one I'd seen a thousand times on BTO's Head On album. Well, I'd bought things based on odd associations before - like when I had to buy anything that Solid Rock Records released (this was generally a good thing) - so who knows, maybe this was a hidden gem. There weren't any real scratches or rash, just a lot of dirt and dust. It seemed to clean up okay, but we'll see how it goes. The album opens with the title track, and this wasn't straight-ahead pop or rock. It was leaning toward the progressive, but with a pop bent. Oddly enough, the vocals rem...

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