It Ain’t Easy by Three Dog Night

It Ain't Easy, Three Dog Night's third studio album, came out on Dunhill in 1970 with Richard Podolor producing, and it very nearly arrived under another name and in a lot less clothing. Chuck Negron later wrote in his book Three Dog Nightmare that the working title was The Wizards of Orange, with the band posing nude in orange makeup on the cover. The label turned down both, though the photo resurfaced on some editions of Golden Bisquits the next year.

Inside, the Los Angeles outfit does what it did best: three singers, Negron, Cory Wells and Danny Hutton, passing the lead around over Jimmy Greenspoon's keyboards, Joe Schermie's bass, Michael Allsup's guitar and Floyd Sneed's drums. Their knack for picking other people's songs pays off big on Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not to Come", a rollicking, hip-shaking hit. Even Robert Christgau, no easy mark for this band, praised the song choices and the restraint.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.