This week’s musical selection was inspired by the sad news that Cory Wells, one of the founding members of the classic rock group Three Dog Night, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday. He was 74.

Three Dog Night came together in 1967 and went on to score an astonishing twenty-one top-40 hits in the US over the next six years, with three of those songs — “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” “Joy to the World,” and “Black and White” — reaching the number-one slot. Interestingly, each of those number-one records featured a different one of the band’s three vocalists on lead: the aforementioned Wells on “Mama,” Danny Hutton on “Black and White,” and Chuck Negron anchoring “Joy.” The band broke up in 1976, but reformed in the early ’80s and has been recording and touring more or less continuously (with some variations in personnel) ever since.

“Shambala,” again featuring the late Mr. Wells on lead vocals, was a number-three hit for Three Dog Night, peaking in the summer of 1973. I was just a wee lad then, which is probably why this song always conjures associations with my very early childhood: the smell of freshly cut alfalfa, the flavor of Fanta Red Creme Soda, and sundogs arcing across the curved windshield of my mom’s ’56 Ford pickup truck. (Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” and “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me” by Mac Davis stir up the same memories, which I suppose tells you a lot about my mom’s musical tastes at the time.) Whether it’s those idyllic, harvest-gold memories or just the upbeat sound of the group’s signature electric organ, this is one of a handful of songs that have an inscrutable ability to always make me feel better, no matter the circumstances.

Music videos weren’t a thing in Three Dog Night’s heyday, of course, but I did locate this, a clip from the band’s 1975 appearance on the PBS program Soundstage. It’s good stuff to head into the weekend with, I think…