The Girl Who Named 3 Dog Night – June Fairchild

Larry J Dunlap – http://larryjdunlap.com/ljd-blog/

I never met June Fairchild, though I first heard about her in 1968, and even then I didn’t know her name. Her given name was June Wilson and she was born in Manhattan Beach, California. Like many of the young beautiful girls of the 60s, she wanted to be a movie star. During the years she was with Danny Hutton of “Roses and Rainbows” fame , she took the fateful step of joining the Screen Actors Guild, discovering that someone had already taken that name. Danny, apparently suggested Fairchild for her stagename and that was accepted. June is famous for naming as well. When she read in a National Geographic that Australian Aborigines defined how cold nights were in the Outback by how many dogs you needed to sleep with to keep warm enough to survive she told Danny that’s what he should name his new band. If it was really cold, it was a three-dog night. It stuck and Three Dog Night when on to a memorable career.

It appeared that June would go on to a memorable career too, as she worked in several movies and danced on Hollywood A’ Go Go TV show with a troupe called the Gazzari Dancers,  though they have no official connection to the Gazzari’s night club where we and many, many other 60s band played. Somehow, in someway, in a haze of drugs and alcohol, she fell through the cracks. The Manhattan Beach prom queen, famous go-go dancer, actress with a brilliant life and future fell all the way down to a skid row cardboard box in downtown Los Angeles. The mean, mean streets of rape and beatings.

Floyd Sneed, pictured here with June last September, was who told several of the guys in our band that some people had come in to see us, as we sat around a table at the

Rag Doll night club in North Hollywood in 1968. But they’d missed us, it was our night off. Floyd had been playing our off-nights with an excellent little trio called “Heat Wave,” and we’d become friendly. Especially with our drummer Leonard. One night Leonard asked Floyd, who held his sticks like hammers, about his unusual style and Floyd said, “African Lighting, baby, African Lightning.” He explained that even when the people who came to see us discovered we weren’t playing that night, they stayed anyway and then asked him if he’d like to audition for this new super group they were forming. “Three lead singers,” he’d said. “I told you guys I wanted to play in a group like yours, and look what happened?” I can’t remember for certain but I’m pretty certain it was Reb Foster, one of Three Dog’s managers, and Danny Hutton.

When one of us asked what the name of this hot new super group was, he said Three Dog Night, Leonard, puzzled, wanted to know what that meant. Floyd shrugged. “I dunno. Danny’s girlfriend read something about how many dogs you gotta sleep with on a really cold night, but,” Floyd grinned, and leaned back in his chair. “How can guys in a band called Stark Naked and the Car Thieves question anyone else’s wacky name?”

June died of liver cancer last Tuesday, at the age of 68 in a convalescent home. http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-june-fairchild-20150219-story.html Two of her high school girlfriends rescued her several years earlier from the streets to get her to come to a reunion. Though life was difficult her living on social security disability she remained living in small downtown hotels doing her best. It may not be the newest story of the high-flying 60s, of the time and place, but it reminds me of the pitfalls and dangers my friends and I saw take down so many. There’s a donation site for June at http://www.gofundme.com/JuneFairchild I’m going to go donate to it in our group’s name. For June, and for many others who burned so bright and fell so far in those days of music and love.