I found a CCR (Credence Clearwater Revival) compilation which has 'Joy to the world' (or 'Jeremiah was a bullfrog' to most people) and presumably CCR recorded the song made famous by Three Dog Night. Yet, a nephew said something that it was not by CCR, or like a blogger asked in a forum, 'Did CCR play or record that song?' I am sure it is easy to confirm the fact, whichever way was true, but over a period of time, memory fails and details get blurred and distorted.
It is quite interesting to read some information on such an uneventful act (to most people) as recording a song. Here are some which I picked from Songfacts.com:
"The band hated this song when they first heard it, and wondered WTF Jeremiah was a bullfrog had to do with anything, according to the autobiography of Jimmy Greenspoon, TDN's keyboardist. The band buried the song in the middle of the second side and only released it after its management urged them to do so, according to Greenspoon's book. I love TDN and can live with this (overplayed and overrated) song. What's too bad is this was a great band and when you ask people to name their favorite TDN song, they typically say, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog," like they know what they're talking about."
"Though I see the quote from Hyot Axton that the "Jeremiah" line was a throw away line, I had heard on an interview that a "Bullfrog" is a New Orleans term for a drunk."
"Hoyt Axton wrote this for an animated TV special called The Happy Song that never materialized. Axton pitched it to the group while he opened for them on a tour. Three Dog Night also had a Top-10 hit with "Never Been to Spain," which was also written by Axton."
The Naturally album was released in November, 1970, and the first single to chart from the album was "One Man Band," which peaked at #19 US in December. "Joy To The World" was a lowly album cut, until Larry Bergman brought it to life in Seattle. Larry tells us: "I was the DJ who first played 'Joy To The World' on the radio that caused it to start its journey to #1. I was working at radio station KISW-FM at the time. It was the sister station to the number one radio station in Seattle, KJR-AM. That was when AMs were more popular than FMs. My job was to select odd cuts from albums by popular artists, not necessarily their hits, and record them on tape for on-air use. I remember I needed to find one more song to fill a tape I was producing and came across Joy To The World. It was on the second side, last cut on their Naturally album. I put it on the tape and played it on the air. Within the hour the KJR DJ (Gary Shannon) came running over from the AM side and asked where I got that song. "People were calling," he said. I told him and he had me record it on to another tape for him. He took it and played it on KJR and within a few weeks it went to #1 in Seattle. It wasn't long after that the song reached #1 on Billboard. The station got a gold record for it and Three Dog Night came to Seattle to launch their next album."
"On a television special, Hoyt Axton said he had come up with this song while he was recording some other songs. He had already written the melody and the chorus but didn't have any other lyrics. The bass player encouraged him to record the song anyway, so Axton simply made up some nonsense as place holder lyrics. The place holder lyrics stuck and the rest is Rock history. (thanks, Nick - tampa, FL)"
The above sample of opinions on just a song show that each of us will have an opinion on any event and there is no clear cut 'yes or no' or 'black or white' answers which we hope for.
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