For Aurora resident Dawn King, nothing evokes memories of the past like hearing the music she grew up with.
“When I was a teenager I was in the drum and bugle corps and we played a song by Three Dog Night ‘Out in the Country’ for one of our shows,” King said Friday night. “I didn’t realize at the time that Three Dog Night sang that song, and it wasn’t until I was downstairs working out in my basement a couple of weeks ago and heard the song and realized where it came from. I had to come to the show.”
Friday night at RiverEdge Park in Aurora, thousands of music fans took a trip back in time as a revamped and much more venerable version of Three Dog Night took the stage to revisit songs that once ruled radio airwaves from 1968 through the mid-1970s, with a total of 21 Top-40 hits.
The band’s name comes from the description about a night being so cold you’d need three dogs in bed with you to keep you warm. The current group features just one of the band’s original singers, Danny Hutton, 81, whose son, Timothy Hutton, continues to perform as the band’s bass player.
Cory Wells, who sang lead on hits like “Mama Told Me Not to Come” and “Never Been to Spain,” died in 2015 from cancer, while the third original lead singer of the group Chuck Negron continues to work with organizations to keep drugs out of the music industry.
Fans recalled the group’s first breakout song, a cover of Harry Nilsson’s “One,” from the band’s self-titled debut album.
Later albums by the band included monster hits “Joy to the World” and “Black and White,” which each peaked at number one.
Jim Jarvis, who serves as the chief programming officer and general manager for RiverEdge Park, has seen plenty of classic rock bands at the Aurora venue and believes part of the appeal includes nostalgia as well as a sort of an escape from the times we live in.
“I think this also has to do with living in these crazy times and all around us people are intense and all these crazy politics and violence and I think you go to a night like tonight and maybe forget all that for a while,” Jarvis said just before the show. “This morning, I was doing some work and listening to some Three Dog Night songs and it takes me back to the ’70s. It was a different time and it was just a nice, soothing thing I like to hear. I think for a couple of hours it’s an escape.”
Fans on Friday were lining up along Broadway to enter RiverEdge Park well before the gates opened at 6 p.m. for the 8 p.m. show.
Barb Hunter of Yorkville and her husband Michael came dressed in tie-dyed outfits to the concert.
“To me, it’s just going to be fun,” Barb Hunter said said before the show. “You know the songs and that’s what I’m all about.”
Michael Hunter said he “was the real music fan” between he and his wife and recalled his “older brother used to listen to (Three Dog Night) on eight-track.”
“We used to drive around and listen to them. He liked them and he turned me on to them when I was 14 years old,” Hunter said. “The band had great harmonies. For me, going back in time like this is just having a good time.”
Aurora’s James Wilson said he comes to many of the concerts offered at the park each summer and brought his grandsons Friday in order to make some Three Dog Night converts.
“We get the tickets early when there is a discount,” Wilson explained. “The grandkids are 15 and 16 and it’s a great time. Back in the ’70s it was the end of Vietnam and listening to good music and good bands. That’s what we’re doing today – bring the grandkids down and introducing then to things. They love it. They love every minute of it. My son-in-law told me he could tell the kids had been hanging around me because they are listening to the music of the ’60s and ’70s.”
Ingrid Ziemann of Seneca said she was only 10 when she first heard Three Dog Night “when I was spending the night at a friend’s house.”
“I remember ‘Joy to the World’ and I also like really all of the songs. They’re all good,” she said. “For me – 50 years later – I think it’s awesome that they’re still performing.
“To me, the bands today are not that great,” she said. “I just think the rock bands from the ’70s were awesome. The stuff never gets old. That’s why I’m here.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
