Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night dies at 83

Chuck Negron, one of three lead singers in the original lineup of the hitmaking Los Angeles band Three Dog Night, died Monday at his home in Studio City. He was 83.

His death was announced by a representative, Zach Farnum, who didn’t specify a cause but said that Negron died peacefully surrounded by his family. For decades, he suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Founded in 1967 by Negron and fellow vocalists Cory Wells and Danny Hutton, Three Dog Night played catchy, polished soft rock — “slick as Wesson oil,” music critic Robert Christgau once wrote — with lush three-part harmonies and tons of melodic hooks. The musicians wrote some of their songs but were better known for interpreting tunes by other songwriters, including Harry Nilsson (“One”), Laura Nyro (“Eli’s Coming”), Randy Newman (“Mama Told Me Not to Come”), Hoyt Axton (“Joy to the World”) and Paul Williams (“An Old Fashioned Love Song”). Negron sang lead on “One” and “Joy to the World,” among other tunes.

Between 1969 and ‘75, Three Dog Night put 21 songs inside the Top 40 of Billboard’s Hot 100; three of those went to No. 1: “Mama Told Me Not to Come” — about a sheltered young guy having his mind blown at a Hollywood party — “Joy to the World” and “Black & White,” the last written by David I. Arkin and Earl Robinson.

Tastemakers were split on the group, whose name was said to refer to the practice among Indigenous Australians of sleeping with dogs for warmth. Robert Hilburn, The Times’ former pop music critic, called Three Dog Night “a fairly pedestrian hit machine.” But a reviewer from the New York Times was warmer, writing in 1975 that the band is “succeeding in recreating the days when rock and roll was fun music, before relevance and heaviness descended on it all.”

Negron was born June 8, 1942, and grew up in the Bronx. His father, Charles Negron, was a nightclub performer from Puerto Rico; Chuck Negron sang in doo-wop groups as a kid and later moved to L.A. to play basketball at California State University. Three Dog Night released its first album in 1968 — among the other members were Michael Allsup, Jimmy Greenspoon, Joe Schermie and Floyd Sneed — but by the mid-’70s the band had broken up. Various reunions followed.

Negron was open about his struggles with drug addiction; according to Farnum’s statement, he lived for a period on L.A.’s Skid Row before getting clean in 1991. Negron launched a solo career a few years later; his most recent solo album, a collaboration with two of his daughters, came out in 2017.

Farnum said that Negron and Hutton reconciled last year after decades of estrangement. Negron’s survivors include his wife, Ami Albea Negron; his children Shaunti Negron Levick, Berry Oakley, Charles Negron III, Charlotte Negron and Annabelle Negron; and nine grandchildren.