The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hey everyone
I saw Three Dog Night in Rocky Mount tonight which is in Franklin County, Va. so called moonshine capitol of Va. When you play and sell out a 400 seater, your career will only skyrocket. Great show but Cory and Danny look so old. I have a question since Danny has been linked to Brian Wilson. Maybe some of you have some inside answers. I post this from someone who has read Chuck Negron's book. It kinda boggles my mind how after 20 years, they still dont want him back. I know Chuck did himself in with the drugs but he seems to be straight and has in interviews said they dont have that much time left for a reunion etc. Who has opinions as who is the most full of crap over this? I have only read one interview with Cory where he discusses Chuck  and Chuck seems to be all open about it in his interviews. Can we believe everything Chuck has to say? Is Danny to blame or is Cory the biggest obstacle in this? At the show tonight, Cory said they were dedicating all of their shows to keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon who died last week. I just wonder if Chuck were no longer around, would they give him the same courtesy and remember him with affection? Any opinions or facts on any of this anyone? Keep rocking.
Joe

Who knows what went on way back when Chuck became 'unreliable'?   Did it cost Danny and Cory something?  Did it cost them a LOT?  Did it help end their collective/group career as consistant hit makers?   Were they pretty much wrapping it up anyway?  Maybe they had a specific shelf life?   I don't know.  I interviewed Danny at length back in the mid 80s.  We sat down for an hour and then I subsequently went to the venue they were headlining in order to MC the show [Cary was there for that as well]  We did not talk about Chuck.  It was a positive interview and show and we used it to promote their gig at the Royal York Hotel.

It's a shame...at least on the surface.

Danny struck me as a VERY loyal kind of person.  I'd guess though that THAT loyalty had to be earned. ???  Obviously something went down which leaves Chuck on the outside looking in.

It would be nice for us fans if the three of them were sharing a stage again, but I have learned over the years that there is always more to these things than what the participants will admit to publicly. If you are lucky enough to get anywhere near 'the inside', to meet a few people who know the real story, the pieces start to fit. In my case, it was Paul Revere and Mark Lindsay. Don't know enough about TDN to speculate about what went down. Chuck comes across publicly as a good guy, could be completely different off the stage.

Well, Jimmy Greenspoon published his own book 24 years ago - not easy to find now.  I had a copy of it then and lost it, then had another one for a while last year, then sold it for a hundred dollars - it's out of print and pretty rare, as is Chuck Negron's book.

Greenspoon does discuss the TDN split a bit, but he's not as clear as he maybe could have been about what went wrong between Chuck and Cory and Danny. Chuck's out-of-control drug abuse was a factor, certainly.   But my feeling is that there were tensions between Chuck and the other two that went far back, into the band's early days.  

Anyway, Greenspoon's death should be a wakeup call to Cory and Danny that if they're ever going to get Chuck onstage with them at least one more time, then the time to do that is sooner rather than later.

Incidentally, Greenspoon has a very funny story in his book about coking it up with Huntz Hall - yep, the Bowery Boy himself.  A few months ago I met Huntz's son but I didn't quite get around to talking about that with him. He happens to be the Dean of the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.