Corporate Entertainment - Chuck Negron booking information!

From the streets of New York to high-end Hiltons to lowlife homelessness and back, the story of Chuck Negron - formerly of Three Dog Night - is an amazing saga. Even more so when you consider that it resolves in a resounding triumph. For what could have ended on a deadly downbeat, is, today, a story of how music saved a man's life not once but twice.

Chuck Negron was growing up on the mean streets of the Bronx when rock 'n roll first made a difference in his life. It was the late '50s, and Negron became a street-corner crooner -- a Doowop wonder boy. How good was he? Check this out: It's 1957, Amateur Night at Harlem's legendary Apollo Theater. The audience is pummeling a young female singer with a merciless barrage of catcalls and tomatoes, driving the unfortunate girl from the stage. Then a stone-cold, dead-solid silence ensues as the curtain rises on The Rondells, featuring a 15-year-old Chuck Negron. "We were not just the only white group on the bill," Negron recalls, "we were the only white people for 10 miles! But by our second verse, the audience was cheering."

The Apollo show as Negron's first lesson that "Music transcends everything." But could it raise the dead? Years later, long after his Three Dog Night hits, including "One" and "Joy to the World," had conquered the charts, Chuck Negron would learn the answer to that question.

Making The Rounds

Soon after his Apollo triumph, the teen-aged Chuck Negron began haunting Manhattan's famed Brill Building, where he sang for one song-smith after another. "I got to know who all the writers were. Neil Sedaka, Carole King, Barry Mann, Lieber & Stoller. I watched and listened. And I realized, 'They're great writers, but I can really sing.' I knew I had a voice". But Negron wasn't just a gifted young singer -- he was also a star basketball player being heavily recruited by colleges nationwide.

By 1961, it was decision time for his future. What do you do when you can sing like an angel and dunk a basketball like the devil? Chuck Negron did both. He accepted an athletic scholarship from Hancock College in Santa Maria, California (and later was recruited by Bill Sharmen, coach at Cal State L.A.), and also signed a recording contract with Columbia Records as a singer -- "Chuck Rondell."

Four years later, with his hoop dreams now behind him, Negron arrived in Los Angeles to make a reputation as a kick-ass vocalist. In 1968, Chuck, Cory Wells and Danny Hutton formed a vocal trio whose roots would be in the harmonies of the '50s, but whose music would be totally of the '60s.

It turned out to be a pretty good idea.

Every Dog Has It's Day

Built around the pop/soul pyrotechnics of Wells, Hutton, and Negron, and backed by the best musicians from around the U.S. and Canada, few bands were as daringly eclectic or as consistently popular as Three Dog Night. In an era when The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Sly & The Family Stone were storming the charts, Three Dog Night had, by 1975, sold 50 million albums.

What put Three Dog Night ahead of the pack was not just Negron's soaring, soulful lead vocals (displayed early on in the gut wrenching "Easy To Be Hard"), but his uncanny knack for finding exceptional material written by a new generation of songwriters like Elton John, Harry Nilsson, Laura Nyro, Randy Newman, Paul Williams, Hoyt Axton and others.

Singles were Three Dog Night's forte and they hit hard with a phenomenal 18 consecutive Top 20 hits and 21 Top 40 hits, including eight Top Tens like "One (is the Loneliest Number)," "Easy to be Hard," "An Old Fashioned Love Song," "The Show Must Go On," and three Number Ones: "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)," "Joy To The World," and "Black & White." Three Dog Night also topped the charts with five Top 10 albums and 11 Top 20 albums. To date, the band's catalog has moved upwards of 90-million albums, of which a dozen have gone platinum.

"Three Dog Night were a self-contained, autonomous band," Negron explains. "We picked the songs, arranged them, and co-produced them with no record company interference."

Few bands were as popular in concert as Three Dog Night. Selling tickets by the bale-full, they pioneered stadium extravaganzas -- prompted Rolling Stone, in it's 1972 cover story on the band, to exclaim, "More Gold Than The Stones! Bigger Crowds Than Creedance! Fatter Purses Than Elvis!" -- where their opening acts were the likes of Rod Stewart, Aerosmith, and ELO.

But by the mid-'70s, the band's magical "Shambala" existence was under intense interpersonal strain. "Rock star arrogance and drug use -- much of it my own." admits Negron, "had a lot to do with it." Soldering on after their last Top 10 single (1974's ironically entitled "The Show Must Go On"), Three Dog Night called it quits in 1977, with only Negron, Wells, and Jimmie Greenspoon remaining from the original seven members.

With all the time in the world, more money than God, and a voracious appetite for self destruction, Chuck Negron forged a new career for himself as a hard core drug user, a pursuit that dragged him down to a depth of existence few of us ever encounter.

Mad Dog Nightmare

"To show you the insanity of drug addition," recalls Negron, "I was at a pay phone on Skid Row in downtown L.A., doing a deal with my drug connection, when a car drove by and opened fire on some guys standing behind me. Everybody ran for their lives except me. I just ducked a little holding onto that phone receiver. Bullets were whizzing past me. I was in the direct line of fire and I still would not give up that phone! I cared more about getting my next fix then saving my own life."

But no amount of humiliation or rehabilitation programs -- 37 in all -- could steer Chuck away from drugs, the love of his rapidly deteriorating life. Sleeping in abandoned buildings, suffering from emphysema, the former 6'1" 185 lbs. Rock idol had, by 1991, shrunk to a cadaverous 126 pounds.

Come From Behind Victory

Just when it seemed everyone had given up on him, Negron's sister-in-law took him to his 37th and final rehabilitation clinic. "I only went because it was either rehab or jail. I chose rehab." But it was at Cri-Help, a long-term drug rehabilitation facility, that Chuck Negron had an epiphany. It happened one afternoon when, for a few hours, he slept peacefully and awoke with no jones for a fix. "Suddenly it dawned on me," he says, "that if I was so willing to die, why not be willing to live?"

As Negron is the first to admit, the story of his rise and fall is a cliche worthy of the Rock n' Roll Hall of Shame. But his nine-month stay at Cri-Help was a come-from behind victory, a buzzer beater, that changed his life profoundly and presented him with his next realization. "There was now something I craved to do more than drugs. The one thing, since I was a kid, that had always made me feel good inside. I wanted to make music again."

Am I Still In Your Heart

Dedicating himself to a strenuous training regimen, Chuck Negron restored his body to a healthy 185 pounds. Revitalized, he accepted an invitation to record the "Golden Girls" TV theme song, then embarked on a series of well-received live performances, including the opening slot on comedian Howie Mandel's acclaimed 1994 Atlantic City show. It was there that he impressed critics and audiences with a four-octave range that is, incredibly, one octave higher today than it was originally. "Live performance can be like an athletic event," Negron explains with a laugh, "I utilize a vocal coach whenever necessary."

By 1996, a man who should have been a charter member of Rock n' Roll Heaven had returned as a complete entertainer. "I'm connecting to the crowds now," he says, "I'm more relaxed, I'm enjoying myself. I even change the set sometimes for the audience."

Negron performs upwards of 75 shows per year, giving sold-out crowds the opportunity to hear his impressive versatility on Three Dog Night's treasure trove of hits, plus an exciting repertoire of new songs as well.

But while former Three Dog Night vocalists Wells and Hutton perform as "Three Dog Night" nostalgia show, those who would consider Chuck Negron to be an "oldies act" should reconsider. "The hits I sang are definitely part of who I am," says Negron. "But audiences today, even though they love the old songs, they always come up and ask me to do more new stuff."

And it's no wonder. His debut solo album of all new material, "Am I Still In Your Heart?" clearly shows Negron is not only in the best voice of his life, but still has the knack for picking quality songs. Tracks like the soulful "How Bout Us," the pounding rocker "Am I Still In Your Heart," and the deeply affecting and irresistible single, "Soul To Soul," suggest that Chuck Negron is definitely back!

Some Dogs Go To Heaven

With TV appearances on VH1, Geraldo, Howard Stern, Charles Grodin, Hard Copy, Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, Leeza and numerous radio appearances, an autobiography -- "Three Dog Nightmare" -- along with a New CD "The Long Road Back" the sound track to the book were released in June, 2000, and a full slate of live concerts booked through next year, it would seem Chuck Negron has enough on his plate. But there's more. A full length autobiographical documentary for airing on network television is in the works as well as a feature film.

A father of a young daughter, as well as two grown sons and a grown daughter (Chuck also recently became a grandfather), Chuck remains active with Cri-Help, the Musicians Assistance Program (MAP), and MusiCares, which aim to keep drugs out of the music industry.

"It's a total gift to have been able to come back this way," beams Negron. "It's just amazing to have the opportunity to perform and record again. And I'll tell you, I'm enjoying every minute of it."

Chuck Negron - formerly of Three Dog Night - is available for appearances at your next corporate event or conference. Contact us today to get started.