February 1969
Suitable For Framing followed Three Dog Night's debut disc by only a few months, sharing the charts with its predecessor for a while. This second release contained two Top Ten chartmakers: "Easy to Be Hard," and from the rock musical Hair, and "Eli's Coming," written by quirky songwriter Laura Nyro (who also wrote "And When I Die," a hit for Blood, Sweat and Tears the same year). It also introduced the songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin to American audiences with a version of "Lady Samantha," from Elton's British-only first album release, that was also a hit single for Three Dog Night. Another popular song from this album was the classic "Celebrate," with its blaring horn lines and easily sung, "Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music" chorus and coda. Suitable For Framing also included a soulful take on Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come," and provided the first popular cover version of Dave Mason's soon-to-be-oft-recorded "Feeling Alright." Although the hit singles were plentiful, the album only reached number 16, showing the gap between the singles-buying audience and those that purchased albums. Nonetheless, Suitable For Framing confirmed the group's musical strength with the AM radio audience while appealing to more "hip" listeners as well.
1972
Kicking off with the infectious single "Black and White," Seven Separate Fools appears to be another winner for Three Dog Night, a group who had been blessed with an uninterrupted string of six hit albums. And album number seven did indeed turn into a blockbuster, largely because of that irresistible single, but in retrospect it could be seen as the beginning of the end. Throughout the record, Three Dog Night steadfastly sticks to their appealing, polished pop-soul sound, relying on a bevy of outside songwriters for material. The difference is, they didn't have the same knack for picking terrific songs that they did before. Seven Separate Fools begins strongly with "Black and White" and Randy Newman's "My Old Kentucky Home," but then sharply falls off, picking up only occasionally from there on out ("Pieces of April," "Tulsa Turnaround," "Freedom for the Stallion"). These moments are pretty enjoyable on their own, but they're too isolated to make the record a consistently enjoyable listen, even for dedicated fans.