12 classic rock bands that featured more than two lead singers
By Jonathan Eig
THREE DOG NIGHT
Three Dog Night predated the band America by a few years. They started with same idea. Get three guys together who could both write and sing. Share the frontman job. It worked out pretty well. Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron, and Cory Wells scored more than twenty top-20 hits in less than a decade, making them one of the most successful recording acts of their time.
I’ll admit that though I eventually was able to hear the differences in their voices, for the longest time, I thought there was just one guy singing. I still have to double-check myself when I want to refer to a particular singer and a particular song. Unlike some of the other bands on this list, the three different voices didn’t necessarily expand the group’s sound.
But their differences in taste certainly did. That was most apparent on the band’s biggest hit. Hutton and Wells thought a Hoyt Axton song with a silly opening lyric was nonsense and neither wanted to include it on their upcoming album. But Negron convinced them that it would be a good balance to the more serious numbers they were doing, and he didn’t mind singing “Jeremiah was a bullfrog.” The song – “Joy To the World” became one of the biggest singles of the decade.
Next. Five songs from the 1990s that had no business being great. Five songs from the 1990s that had no business being great. dark
BEST TRACK BY VOCALIST:
Danny Hutton: “Liar”
Chuck Negron: “Old Fashioned Love Song” (“Joy to the World” notwithstanding)
Cory Wells: “Never Been to Spain” (also penned by Hoyt Axton)
For the record, Kiss, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, and the Beatles are the only bands to make both the Forbes list and this one.
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