{"id":3628101,"uri":"https://api.kexp.org/v2/plays/3628101/?format=json","airdate":"2026-03-12T12:28:48-07:00","show":66161,"show_uri":"https://api.kexp.org/v2/shows/66161/?format=json","image_uri":"https://dn710207.ca.archive.org/0/items/mbid-1cd31d38-4554-414f-a204-0aabefc1c9ff/mbid-1cd31d38-4554-414f-a204-0aabefc1c9ff-33157689869_thumb500.jpg","thumbnail_uri":"https://dn710207.ca.archive.org/0/items/mbid-1cd31d38-4554-414f-a204-0aabefc1c9ff/mbid-1cd31d38-4554-414f-a204-0aabefc1c9ff-33157689869_thumb250.jpg","song":"Joy to the World","track_id":"5565451b-bca1-4fd8-b398-c1a3f759356f","recording_id":"794dc2ef-c567-48df-932a-7db3938d53f1","artist":"Three Dog Night","artist_ids":["1a48176d-1414-4a18-9792-50ba585d4d59"],"album":"Joy to the World / I Can Hear You Calling","release_id":"5e50e465-36fe-4625-9821-0d6c9df319ac","release_group_id":"98d58e00-1fe0-4870-9342-10e076c88c85","labels":["Dunhill ABC"],"label_ids":["bbba24ff-aa3a-454b-8754-3fe691b84fb8"],"release_date":"1971-01-01","rotation_status":"Library","is_local":false,"is_request":false,"is_live":false,"comment":"\"Joy To The World\" was a lowly album cut, until DJ Larry Bergman brought it to life in Seattle.\n\nLarry told Songfacts: \"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.\n\nI 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.\n\nI 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.\"\n\nhttps://www.songfacts.com/facts/three-dog-night/joy-to-the-world","location":1,"location_name":"Default","play_type":"trackplay"}