Chuck Negron, the founding member of the rock group Three Dog Night, has died at the age of 83. The powerful vocalist behind some of the group’s biggest hits in the 1960s and 70s, including “Joy to the World,” “One,” and “An Old Fashioned Love Song,” died after suffering complications from heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), his publicist Zach Farnum confirmed via the Associated Press. Negron’s rock-and-roll lifestyle was marked by a lifetime of drug and alcohol abuse, which ultimately led to him being kicked out of the group in 1985, just four years after Three Dog Night reformed. Negron eventually achieved sobriety in the 1990s, going on to release seven solo albums between 1995 and 2017. He also chronicled the highs and lows of his life in his 1999 memoir, Three Dog Nightmare. Negron formed Three Dog Night with Danny Hutton and Cory Wells in 1967, and the band achieved its first million-selling single, “One,” just two years later. Negron and Hutton later had a falling-out and did not speak for decades before reconciling last year. Despite suffering from COPD, Negron continued touring into his later years before being forced to stop amid the COVID pandemic.
Read it at Associated Press
