Chuck Negron Performs @ July 4th Festival 07/05/81
A few days before this concert, he was at Wonderland.
This was at Long Beach. Other groups which performed at this event were the Beach Boys and Pablo Cruise.
This one’s for Joy!!
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John
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John
The Negron's Ordered Delivery From Greenblatt’s Deli
Not much today, but I broke down and ordered Chuck’s book “Three Dog Nightmare”. It arrived the other day. I owned it once before, but lost it before I could really read it all. Man, with the cost of that book, you would think Chuck was still supporting a $2,000 a day junk habit. Thus, I had to dip into my own drug money to afford Chuck’s book about drugs. It’s true though, Joy Miller did have a big crush on him. But, he was 6’4″ and she about 4’11”. How was that ever going to work out.
Anyways, for days and weeks on end, the Negrons would stay holed up at home, doing drugs and ordering food from Greenblatt’s Deli on Sunset. Open until 2 am, 365 days a year.
Greenblatt’s Deli on Sunset
In the late 80s, I found an address for Chuck and he was living at these sweet condos in Santa Monica. Each condo has a view of the beach. They are referred to as “The Bunker”. He wasn’t broke yet!
“The Bunker”
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Brandy
Thanks John! I’ve been waiting patiently for someone to do the expensive work for me and buy that book! I’m hoping Julia’s book is a bit more reasonable. But your synopsis is pretty much what I expected. The “bunker” is gorgeous.
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John
I had scored his book before, but my car was in the shop for a month, book gone, don’t know if it was in car, never saw the book again. It’s not at home, so someone is walking around with Chuck’s book, LOL
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Brandy
Side note….my husband is 6’3″ and I am 5’0″ and it works out just fine.
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John
I know, I was joking around.
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Brandy
LOL
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John
At this link, you can also get a glimpse into Chuck’s song royalty and payment situation, how he makes some money from all those great old songs, etc… http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BMk0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=LmsFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5543%2C575573
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criticextraordinaire
Well, let’s hope that Chuck has enough money coming in from “Joy to the World” royalties that he can have his exploding schlong properly tended to by the medical community. 😀
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John
Chuck Negron In People Magazine, 1995
Chuck’s ex, the lovely Julia, who told us some inside info about Wonderland this week is also quoted.
People Magazine | Oct. 2, 1995
ON A DRIVE THROUGH DOWNTOWN L.A., Chuck Negron passes the abandoned building where he used to shoot heroin and the bank of pay phones where he once made drug deals. “One night about six years ago,” says Negron, a former singer for the group Three Dog Night, “I was talking to my dealer on the phone when a car cruised around the corner and sprayed a sheet of bullets. I ducked as far as the phone cord allowed, which wasn’t far. But I wasn’t about to let that dealer get away. The bullets didn’t faze me because I was already dead.”
1995 seems like yesterday.
That’s not much of an exaggeration. By 1990, when Negron, now 53, kicked a 23-year heroin habit, he had squandered a multimillion-dollar fortune, ruined two marriages and become an emaciated, 126-pound wraith. Negron’s downward spin was as dizzying as his rise to the top with the popular ’70s band that sold some 50 million albums and scored 10 Top 10 singles, including “Joy to the World” and “Mama Told Me (Not to Come).” It wasn’t until 1990 that Negron finally turned his life around after checking himself into a last-ditch rehab facility. “I’m not religious, but I believe God intervened,” says Negron. “I did everything I was told at the rehab center. This peace came over me, and I decided I wanted to live.” And in August he came full circle, releasing Negron, his first album in 19 years. “Chuck was nervous starting out,” says his wife, attorney Robin Silna, 39, of his comeback. “But confidence took over. He knew exactly what he wanted.” Adds Negron: “This isn’t about having a new CD. It’s about being healthy. It’s a gift.”
Life hasn’t always been generous to Negron. Born and raised in The Bronx, he was 5 when his father, Charles, a struggling nightclub singer, and his mother, Elizabeth, divorced. Unable to make ends meet, Elizabeth placed Chuck and his twin sister, Nancy, in an orphanage. Two years later she took them back, but by then her son had become a distant, distrustful child. Fortunately, he had a good voice. “I spent every afternoon playing basketball and singing old doo-wop songs,” says Negron. “And that’s what saved me.”
After graduating from high school, Negron moved to Los Angeles. There, in 1966, he met singer Danny Hutton, who soon recruited Negron along with Cory Wells as colead vocalists for Three Dog Night. Three years later they recorded their first hit, “One (Is the Loneliest Number).” By then, Negron had experimented with LSD and marijuana, which, he believes, collectively fed a predisposition to addiction. “From the get-go, friends told me I had a problem,” says Negron. “I thought I smoked occasionally, but they said, ‘No, you’re a pig.’ ”
During that time he also shifted to cocaine and downers. “I loved Seconals,” he says. “The week after I first took them, I bought 5,000. For me that was like opening the door to hell.” His addiction to pills derailed his first marriage, to Paula Servietti, a dental assistant. But rather than clean up, Negron, who was living in a Laurel Canyon mansion, turned to a new drug. “I thought it was coke,” he says about his first heroin highs. “I tried it, got sick as a dog, threw up my guts and said, ‘Get me some more.’ I spent the next 23 years chasing the feeling.”
He wasn’t alone. In 1973, Negron married Julia Densmore, the former wife of Doors drummer John Densmore. “When Chuck is asked if he ever knew anyone worse than him, he usually says me,” admits Julia, a recovering drug addict. “But we had a great marriage because every drug we got was split 50-50.” Negron’s relationship with his bandmates wasn’t as harmonious. By 1977, the year Densmore and Negron had their son Charles, the group had disintegrated, torn apart by drug-inflamed conflicts. Rather than going solo, Negron devoted his life to being a junkie. To pay for his habits, he eventually sold everything he owned, including all of his gold albums. “Bit by bit, everything eroded,” says Densmore. “We took loans against the house, and eventually our telephone and power lines were turned off.”
Densmore sobered up and left her husband in 1985. A year later, while stoned, Negron attended a party in Santa Monica and met Silna. Thinking she could rescue him, she brought him home. He stole her jewelry and cash, but she stuck with him because “he didn’t have anyplace to go.” Finally, in 1990, when he stole her car to score a fix, Silna, fed up, tracked him to a seedy L.A. motel, then dumped him. The next day, Negron, who says he was hospitalized 35 times for his addiction over a 10-year time, called to tell her he wanted to go into detox. Silna said, “No more hospitals. If you want to leave, go suck pavement.”
Desperate, Negron turned to Cry Help, a residential rehab clinic for the hopeless. “I wanted to die,” he says. “I wanted my brain to stop. I was kicking heroin, pills, everything.” But after a demanding, nine-month program that included cleaning toilets and baring his soul in group sessions, Negron came out clean and says he has stayed that way. He managed to win back Silna’s trust: They married in 1993 and have a 21-month-old daughter, Charlotte.
These days, Negron, who lives off his Three Dog Night royalties, spends a lot of time counseling addicts at Cry Help. The experience has given him a new perspective on his life as a rock cliché. “I was a taker, a self-obsessed jerk, and I hurt a lot of people,” he says. “I made millions. But what’s happening to me now is proof that I’ve been blessed more than ever before.”
PETER CASTRO
TODD GOLD in Los Angeles-
John W
Chuck’s cousin is the actor Taylor Negron. You may remember him as the pizza guy who delivered to Spicoli in Mr Hand’s class (Fast Times @ Ridgmont High).
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John W
“Three Dog Night” is an Aussie term to describe a cold night in the outback. Early settlers, hunters etc would dig a hole at night and sleep in it while out there. On cold nights, 2 dogs were needed. On VERY cold ones, it was a Three Dog Night. I had a lot of Three Dog Nights when I was getting divorced!
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criticextraordinaire
In “Three Dog Nightmare”, Negron describes a situation that had to make him sit back and think about his addition. He was so buzzed out on drugs that he frantically had sex with pretty much anything that would move, until his, uh, *thing* literally exploded. (Man, it hurts even telling the story, imagine how he felt). If that don’t drive one to sobriety, nothing would. :-O
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WillGraham
The book by Nash’s bodyguard discusses the Wonderland murders, too – even though he devotes most sections that discuss Nash to the massive amounts of dirt that little Adel had on the dirty cops and attorneys he had been keeping in his pocket.
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WillGraham
The book by Nash’s bodyguard discusses the Wonderland murders, too – even though he devotes most sections that discuss Nash to the massive amounts of dirt that little Adel had on the crooked cops and attorneys he had been keeping in his pocket.
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John
What is the bodyguard’s name and can you give a link to his book? This is outstanding! I had not heard of this, thanks.
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localarts
That’s precisely what I was referring to on an earlier post in regards to why Four On The Floor was never and will never be published.
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John
Julia is working on a book. This is just a teaser for it, but damn good stuff…
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Bonnie Brae
I am definitely on board to buy that right up. She is a great writer.
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dreamweaverjenn
She is and me too!
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John
Three Dog Nightmare: The Chuck Negron Story
The part about Chuck and Julia being at the house and the record is out in the open… is eerie to me. If I was famous like Chuck, and was hanging out, I wouldn’t want them to play my records. He probably wanted to hear some Skynrd or Allmans Bros.
One can be the loneliest number sometimes.
You can buy Chuck’s book here. I recommend that you buy the $200 version. I don’t know why it’s so pricey, maybe it has a photo of him hanging out with Billy & Ron…. or, it comes with a lock of his hair or something.
When I write my bio, I’m just gonna blame everyone else and sugar coat everything bad that I did. None of this was my fault, man.
Part of a review:
Other celebrities pass through the book’s pages and, given the pervasiveness of drug abuse and Negron’s sometimes vindictive nature, most of them don’t come off well, either. Sly Stone and his heavies are depicted beating Three Dog Night’s road manager Bob Tomasso nearly to death over refusing to pay for a band member’s cocaine. The legendary porn star, John Holmes, is among the periphery of Negron’s junkie circle, who is ultimately implicated in the Wonderland murders, which take place at the home of a friend where Negron often shot up.
To his credit, Negron seems to recognize how deplorable his selfishness and self-indulgence are, and how serious the consequences have been for everyone in his life. That doesn’t make it any easier to read about his son, Chucky, being born addicted to heroin or his girlfriend deciding between an abortion or giving birth to a second addicted baby. And despite his candor, Negron seems lacking in introspection over what led to this destructive lifestyle, or what he could have done to prevent it. Had he used a Three Dog Night song title for the book, “My Impersonal Life” might have been appropriate.
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John
The Three Dog Night record had blood on it after the murders. Also, Joy had a crush on Chuck, she was obsessive about him.
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Bobby
So I take it Chuck would’ve been shooting up at the Wonderland house considering they were a drug connection for him? Wonder if he traded that very copy of the Three Dog Night record for some heroin.
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John W
Much of the living room furniture was Chuck’s. He loaned it to Joy. Obviously, he and his wife did not want it back later. Yeeuch!!
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Bobby
Oh c’mon, all that couch would’ve needed was a little scrub down with soapy water and it woulda been fine! ; ) LOL
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dreamweaverjenn
I would love to read his book but $200 is out of my range
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John
There’s a cheaper one…but I was glad to find my copy at “Half Price Used Books”.
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localarts
$200 WTF!!! Thats beyond ridiculous. Although I’ve never read Porn King, it’s considered by some to be nothing more than a fairy tale per book reviews.
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John W
Well, low end is $30+ but, keep an eye open at used bookstores.
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John W
Another version of his book goes for $300. It has a few extra new chapters. I guess that version gets you dinner with Chuck at the Brown Derby.
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localarts
Dinner with Chuck so I could grill him about 8763, I would be happy to splurge the extra $300 for that.
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John
Chuck Negron & Wonderland
I had posted before about how the album shown in the living room in the crime scene video is by Three Dog Night. If you missed that post, just use the search button. It was obvious that the gang at the house had been jamming to this record and that maybe singer Chuck Negron was going to stop by… maybe Barbara and Susan had not met him yet. I have also never seen Wonderland described as “upscale” by anyone else. Classic.
Here’s what Chuck had to say in an interview for a book titled, The Harder They Fall, which is about celebrities and addiction:
Drugs led to all kinds of problems. Some dealers once shot through the walls of my house in Los Angeles when I was inside. They wanted me to pay my drug debts. I remember terrible fights — one with Janis Joplin where I called her an ugly slut. She was a nice, sweet person and was one of many musicians I knew who died defeated, tortured deaths.
I don’t know why I stayed alive. I used dirty needles. Four people were beaten to death with baseball bats at an upscale heroin shooting gallery in Laurel Canyon. Centering on porn-film legend John Holmes it became known as the Wonderland Murders. The carnage happened in the very place I was spending most of my evenings at the time — except that murderous one. Once I almost drove my whole family into the canyon as we headed down Mulholland Drive in our little red Volkswagen. I had popped some downers before we left home and blacked out. At the last minute, Julia slammed on the brakes. I almost bled to death after demolishing my car on a Sunset Boulevard streetlamp. I cracked my head open, collapsed a lung, and mangled my body. The firefighters had to cut me out from that automobile.
With musicians I knew toppling like ten pins, death was very close up, and I thought about suicide and attempted it as well. Once I hung myself with a belt in the closet of a shabby motel room, only a rusty overhead pipe collapsed and saved me. Another time I walked directly in front of a moving bus on purpose. Compared to facing my probation officer with another dirty drug test, it seemed like a good alternative. I overdosed routinely. Other druggies had to beat me back to life after one overdose, subsequent to which my body was black-and-blue from the neck down.
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Bonnie Brae
I think compared to most shooting galleries, Wonderland probably was upscale.
It’s all relative. -
localarts
Imagine if that album came up for auction on eBay and it had Chuck’s autograph and the cast off blood spatter still on it. Whom amongst you would be willing to break the bank to won it!!
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John
Since I have always had a thing for Barbara, I don’t know if I could do it, as Holmes stood by watching her die.
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localarts
This is true, but you would be owning a piece of Wonderland lore. Can you just imagine how much more national attention the murders would have received if Negron would have been there that night. If Ed Nash and Holmes thought the heat was coming down hard after… well lets just say everybody involved in the murders would have been in the express lane to the gas chamber.
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John W
I guess I read that Christina Applegate remembered seeing the bloody furniture and mattresses by the street on trash day. I would have liked to have a clock radio or Ronnie’s nightstand!!
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apple
Has anybody here read Three Dog Nightmare by Chuck Negron ? He goes into his dealings at Wonderland . So sad that his wife and him brought Chuck Jr into this world addicted to Heroin only to see him grow up and become addicted again . Damn I almost fell over when I saw Chuck Negron on A & E Intervention completely clean and sober only to realize his son was the addict . It was just crazy .
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John
It’s a good read and he has a good Wonderland chapter. Good stuff from another point of view (as customer and friend of Joy)
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Kathleen
I owned this book for quite awhile. Very good read. The makes O.Z.Z.Y. and some of the others out there who thought they were big drugs users look like kindergarteners.
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John
Wonderland Murders Almost Snare Singer for Three Dog Night
Chuck Negron was one of a trio of singers in the band Three Dog Night. He is best known for his vocals on “Joy to the World” (Jeremiah was a bullfrog…yada yada). During his partying days in the 70s and early 80s, he was also an acquaintance of the Wonderland Gang and used to buy drugs from them. This is mentioned in his autobiography, and he did not live far from the famous house at 8763 Wonderland Avenue.
Chuck claims to have set up a drug buy for the night of the murders, but for some reason did not make it or was told to come by another day. The gang had been partying hard and may have needed rest, according to David Lind. Dave spent that fateful night at a San Fernando Valley motel consuming drugs with a hooker.
Also interesting is that in the crime scene video, one can clearly see a blood splattered album next to the first victim in the living room. The album shown is turned around and this is the back cover of “Harmony” by Three Dog Night:
If Chuck was stopping by, maybe they were getting familiar with his music? Screen capture from crime scene video.
An enlarged version. Was this the last music heard by the Wonderland Gang? Susan Launius and Barbara Richardson had not been staying at the house very long, and I bet they were jamming to this album thinking that Chuck was stopping by… were they about to meet a famous person?
That’s it. All of the persons in the photo match up below…
Here is what the back of the album looks like:
This album featured “Just an Old Fashioned Love Song”, a big hit in 1972.
Sources:
Inside The L.C. by Dave McGowan
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Bonnie Brae
that is super cool!!!!!!
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John
Thanks. It took me forever to figure it out.
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scabiesoftherat
Thanks for the great blog, John. I do enjoy your writings about the topics you post about. Very in line with my curiosities. Keep up the good work, man. You have developed a great blog. Love it.
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John
Thanks. You guys always make my day! 🙂
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Darcymarie
Yes I read that in Dave mcgowans strange but true tales of l.c. Very interesting read
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bobabooie
Well…………….Mama told me not to come.
criticextraordinaire, and 2 others are discussing. 
Brandy, and 
localarts, 
WillGraham, and 2 others are discussing. 
Bobby, 
Kathleen, 
apple, and 4 others are discussing. 
bobabooie, 
Darcymarie, 
joii 3:34 pm on July 3, 2014 Permalink |
what happened to Sol Berlin????
Bobby 8:28 am on July 4, 2014 Permalink |
No doubt Chuck would’ve sped over to the Wonderland house as soon as he got paid for that gig! ;p
So, does anybody know if the Three Dog Night record at the crime scene was a gift from Chuck (possibly as an exchange for a discount on dope) or was it already in Joy & Billy’s collection? Such a weird coincidence that it was the ‘one’ (boom-boom!) sleeve that ended up getting splattered in blood! What a morbid collector’s item akin to the album Lennon signed for Mark Chapman. Chuck & Julia must’ve freaked when they learnt about that – really spooky synchronicity considering they nearly went over to the house on that fateful night!
Bobby 8:39 am on July 4, 2014 Permalink |
Er, slight addendum: Guess he wasn’t speeding over to the Wonderland house as I just realised that this concert was a few days after the murders… BUT, had this been before.. LOL – I think y’know what I was getting at… 🙂
Hmm, wonder who he started scoring off at this stage?…
criticextraordinaire 5:54 pm on July 4, 2014 Permalink
Yeah I kinda wonder that too. The Wonderland Gang’s Wikipedia page describes them as “most influential and feared cocaine distributorship of its time in Los Angeles”. I’ve got to think the next few months saw shortages for customers and turf wars by other dealers trying to carve up the territory.
scabiesoftherat 9:22 pm on July 4, 2014 Permalink |
This is a really stellar find, John. Great post. I can’t help but wonder what was going through Chuck’s mind while he was performing here. He seems completely at ease up there. He had to have known about it at this point. It was all over the news. If it were me, I would be scanning the wings looking for cops who were waiting to talk to me about my affiliation with such a questionable residence…but not Chuck, man! He’s out there killin’ it in his own right!…and, not to mention, he’s on the same bill with Dennis “i-lived-with-Manson” Wilson of the Beach Boys. The only thing that could make that bill better would be to have Mark Lindsay do a set. Great video. It’s now in my favorites list. (Geez. I never would have known that was a Three Dog Night album next to the couch had it not been for this blog.) That makes this performance even more serendipitous. Just a side observation about this video? You know it’s 1981 when the lead singer of a pop music combo comes out wearing a striped polo shirt that happens to be tucked in,…AND you know it’s 1981 when a girl in the crowd pulls a pack of Marlboro 100s out her cleavage. You can get a ticket for BOTH of those offenses nowadays.
John 2:57 pm on July 8, 2014 Permalink |
I tried to see if he had track marks on his arms, but no luck. He is 6’3 or 4….so in this vid he must weight a buck fifty! Maybe less.