Album: Cyan
Year: 1973
. . .
As I’ve written before and will write again, my ground zero for becoming a lifelong music freak — when I made that choice or it made me — was the spring of 1973, and I started listening to 13AM KYNO at ever single opportunity. Because of the nature of top 40 radio, it would be possible for me to hear a song a half-dozen times in day. And I was fine with that, even if probably nobody else in my household was.
Anyways, while I doubt that the hippy-dippy bullshit of Daniel Moore’s “Shambala” is considered a major Three Dog Night single, however you might wanna define that term, but it was the one that embedded its way into my heart and soul due to that airplay.
Opening with a kinda rambling guitar line from Mike Allsup, “Shambala” featured a relatively calm lead vocal from Cory Wells:
Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain
With the rain in Shambala
Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame
With the rain in Shambala
This is followed by basically a wordless pre-chorus where Wells is joined by Chuck Negron and Danny Hutton.
Ah-ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ah-ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
And here’s what I remember thinking as a ten-year-old processing this song: while I didn’t know what Three Dog Night meant — it’s Australian Aboriginal for a very cold night — but I was positive that the “Ah-ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, yeah” was exactly the type of sound that a band called Three Dog Night should make. And that was good enough for me, even if the whole thing still seemed too mystical by half.
Also good enough for me was the chorus, a prime example of why Robert Christgau once called them “The Kings of Oversing,” but also a prime example of how sometimes too much is just enough.
How does your light shine
In the halls of Shambala?
How does your light shine
In the halls of Shambala?
And, of course, I was probably too young to eyeroll at the verse about telling your sisters and brothers by the flowers in their eyes, but either way, it was killing time for the big finale, when the whole song stop-times on “Tell me how does your light shine / In the halls of Shambala” with a great Chuck Negron wail of “Telllllll meeeeeee howwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww” on the last one. Fantastic!
After that, it was back to the “Ah-ooh-ooh-oohs” until the fade, and I was hooked. And started paying attention when older Three Dog Night songs came up during the “oldies” slot during each set. If I recall correctly, they would play three or four rotation songs and then an “oldie,” though I don’t think they went back any further than the Beach Boys & Beatles.
“Shambala” was actually one of Three Dog Nights biggest hits, peaking at #3 in the early summer of 1973, but the writing was on the wall: the only other top ten hit they had was 1974’s too-gimmicky by half “The Show Must Go On,” and they were broken up by 1976, their final album not even featuring Danny Hutton, and from what I can tell, was a half-hearted stab at disco, and their second album in a row to not feature any big hits at all. They clearly saw the writing on the wall, and kudos to them for reading it.
“Shambala”
“Shambala” Live on Soundstage, 1975
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