Description
The article discusses the release of two albums by Three Dog Night, IT AIN'T EASY and NATURALLY. The first album, IT AIN'T EASY, is shorter than the second album, NATURALLY, and features different sequencing. The first song on the album is Mama Told Me Not to Come, which is the biggest hit from the first album, and the last song on the album is Joy to the World, which is the biggest hit from the second album. The second album, NATURALLY, is a harder-rocking album and features soulful performances by Spooky Tooth and I've Got Enough Heartache. The only instrumental on the album is Fire Eater, which is a tough swampy riff rocker.
Since Three Dog Night's albums were typically short, single-disc
compilations that pair two of them together are not only logical
but a good value. Case in point: IT AIN'T EASY/NATURALLY, with 19
tracks from two of the band's releases from 1970, clocks in at just
over 68 minutes. The sequencing of IT AIN'T EASY has been changed
from the American edition that led off with the disc's biggest hit,
Mama Told Me Not to Come. That song appears here buried in the
programming at cut seven, which changes the feel of the finished
product. The easy rolling version of Paul Williams' Out in the
Country was the only other charting nugget, although the first
appearance of Elton John's Your Song, which predated John's own
version on his debut by a few months, proves how sharp the group's
knack for finding great tunes was. The one original, Rock and Roll
Widow, which is co-credited to all seven members, is the worst
track by a large margin, further proving that their strength was
finding and covering other artist's material. The opening, Free's
Woman is an inspired choice and one of IT AIN'T EASY's
highlights. NATURALLY, Three Dog Night's second album from 1970, is
a better, harder rocking effort, even if its most memorable
selection, Joy to the World, is almost an afterthought as the
closing tune. Someone had to dig to unearth Spooky Tooth's soulful
I've Got Enough Heartache, a deep album choice from SPOOKY TWO,
but the pay-off is a soulful performance that nonetheless didn't
help Tooth's floundering career. The backing group co-penned Fire
Eater, one of the few instrumentals in TDN's catalog; it's a
tough, swampy riff rocker that features some sizzling guitar from
Mike Allsup that still didn't keep it from getting lost in the
band's catalog.
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