The Los Angeles band turned folk-rock harmonies into a string of 1970s radio hits.
For the full effect, listen to 'One (Is The Loneliest Number)' and 'Tulsa Turn Around' back to back. You hear how they could handle both the big statement and the quieter groove.
They had a way of making songs feel like campfire singalongs that somehow landed on Top 40 radio. 'Joy To The World' and 'One (Is The Loneliest Number)' became inescapable, but even deeper cuts like 'Tulsa Turn Around' show how their three-lead-vocalist setup could turn anything into a group effort. That trading of lines gave their sound a communal warmth that felt different from other rock bands of the era.
Formed in Los Angeles in 1968, they released their first album the next year. The original trio of Danny Hutton, Cory Wells, and Chuck Negron drove the band through its hit-making period until both Wells and Negron had left by 1975. Hutton kept the name alive with new lineups, but those early records with all three singers are what stuck.
Keep it compact: a lyric you come back to, a live memory, or the part of the catalog you would point someone toward first.
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