Blood, Sweat & Tears - Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 - 1970 - CBS
Blood, Sweat & Tears had a hard act to follow in recording their third album. Nevertheless, BS&T constructed a convincing, if not quite as impressive, companion to their previous hit. David Clayton-Thomas remained an enthusiastic blues shouter, and the band still managed to put together lively arrangements, especially on the Top 40 hits "Hi-De-Ho" and "Lucretia Mac Evil." Elsewhere, they re-created the previous album's jazzing up of Laura Nyro ("He's a Runner") and Traffic ("40,000 Headmen"), although their pretentiousness, on the extended "Symphony/Sympathy for the Devil," and their tendency to borrow other artists' better-known material (James Taylor's "Fire and Rain") rather than generating more of their own, were warning signs for the future. In the meantime, BS&T 3 was another chart-topping gold hit. © William Ruhlmann, allmusic.com
Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 is the third album by the band Blood, Sweat & Tears, released in 1970. After the huge success of their previous album, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 was highly anticipated and it rose quickly to the top of the US album chart. It also yielded two hit singles: a cover of Carole King's "Hi-De-Ho," and "Lucretia MacEvil." However, the album relied heavily on cover material and it received lukewarm reviews (this may also have been influenced by the band's participation in an unpopular U.S. government-sponsored tour of Eastern Europe). - From Wikipedia
This album received mixed reviews on it's release. It has been said that on this album the band had deviated to their detriment from the strong jazz rock/horn sound of the first two albums to a more jazz pop orientated sound. Also, the use of classical themes, especially on "40.000 Headmen" has been slated by some music critics as overdone pseudo-jazz rock. At the same time, this "classical" side of BS&T also appealed to a section of jazz rock lovers who felt that this element of the band's music was highly original, innovative, an integral part of the band's distinctive sound, and very well executed. Whatever the criticisms of the album, BS&T were a highly talented jazz rock band, and taken as a whole, this is an excellent album. Like the band's first two albums, it was a commercial success, and turned gold within a month of it's release. Listen to their first two landmark albums. One of their later albums, "Nuclear Blues" is a superb piece of work, and worth hearing. There is info on the "BS&T 4" album @ BS&T 4 Search this blog for more info on the great American jazz rock group. For more music in the same genre, listen to the British jazz rock band C.C.S. Two of their albums, "The Best Band In The Land" and "C.C.S 2" are available on this blog.
TRACKS / COMPOSERS
A1 Hi-De-Ho - Goffin, King
A2 The Battle - Halligan, Katz
A3 Lucratia Mac Evil - Clayton-Thomas
A4 Lucretia's Reprise - Clayton-Thomas, Colomby, Halligan, Katz, Lipius
A5 Fire And Rain - Taylor
A6 Lonesome Suzie - Manuel
B1 Symphony For The Devil / Sympathy For The Devil - Halligan, Jagger, Richards
B1 I Emergence
B1 I a Fanfare
B1 II Devil's Game
B1 II a Labyrinth
B1 II b Satan's Dance
B1 II c The Demand
B1 III Submergence
B1 III a Contemplation
B1 III b Return
B2 He's A Runner - Nyro
B3 Somethin' Comin' On - Cocker, Stainton
B4 40.000 Headmen [ Themes Used In This Arrangement Are Variations Of: Bartok's---Ballad(From Hungarian Peasant Songs), Prokofiev's---Lieutenant Kije Suite, Thelonious Monk's---I Mean You, & Fred Lewis---Etude For Lew And Zoloff ] - Winwood
MUSICIANS
Lead Vocals - David Clayton-Thomas
Guitar, Harmonica - Steve Katz
Bass - Jim Fielder
Organ, Piano, Electric Piano, Harpsichord, Celesta, Trombone, Flute, Flute [Alto], Horn [Baritone], Other [Kitchen Sink], Vocals - Dick Halligan
Drums, Percussion, Vocals - Bobby Colomby
Saxophone [Alto], Piano, Electric Piano, Other [Music Box], Vocals - Fred Lipsius
Trombone, Trombone [Bass], Recorder - Jerry Hyman
Trumpet, Flugelhorn - Chuck Winfield
Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Trumpet [Piccolo] - Lew Soloff
BIO (BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS)
No late-'60s American group ever started with as much musical promise as Blood, Sweat & Tears, or realized their potential more fully -- and then blew it all in a series of internal conflicts and grotesque career moves. It could almost sound funny, talking about a group that sold close to six million records in three years and then squandered all of that momentum. Then again, considering that none of the founding members ever intended to work together, perhaps the group was "lucky" after a fashion. The roots of Blood, Sweat & Tears lay in one weekend of hastily assembled club shows in New York in July 1967. Al Kooper (born February 5, 1944, Brooklyn, NY) was an ex-member of the Blues Project, in need of money and a fresh start in music. He'd been toying with the notion, growing out of his admiration for jazz bandleader Maynard Ferguson, of forming an electric rock band that would use horns as much as guitarists, and jazz as much as rock as the basis for their music. As he later related, he saw the proposed group coming down somewhere midway between James Brown's Famous Flames and the Count Basie Orchestra. Kooper hoped to raise enough cash to get to London (where he would put such a band together) through a series of gigs involving some big-name friends in New York. When the smoke cleared, there wasn't enough to get him to London, but the gig itself produced a core group of players who were interested in working with him: Jim Fielder (born October 4, 1947, Denton, TX), late of Buffalo Springfield, on bass, whom Kooper brought in from California; Kooper's former Blues Project bandmate, guitarist Steve Katz (born May 9, 1945, Brooklyn, NY); and drummer Bobby Colomby (born December 20, 1944, New York, NY), with whom Katz had been hanging out and also talking about starting a group. Kooper agreed, as long as he was in charge musically -- having just come off of the Blues Project, who'd been organized as a complete cooperative and essentially voted themselves out of existence, he was only prepared to throw into another band if he were calling the shots. This became the group that Kooper had visualized; it would have a horn section that would be as out front as Kooper's keyboards or Katz's guitar. Colomby brought in alto saxman Fred Lipsius (born November 19, 1944, New York, NY), a longtime personal idol, and from there the lineup grew, with Randy Brecker (born November 27, 1945, Philadelphia, PA) and Jerry Weiss (born May 1, 1946, New York, NY) joining on trumpets and flügelhorns, and Dick Halligan (born August 29, 1943, Troy, NY) playing trombone. The new group was signed to Columbia Records, and the name Blood, Sweat & Tears came to Kooper in the wake of an after-hours jam at the Cafe au Go Go, where he'd played with a cut on his hand that had left his organ keyboard covered in blood. The original Blood, Sweat & Tears turned out to be one of the greatest groups that the 1960s ever produced. Their sound, in contrast to R&B outfits that merely used horn sections for embellishment and accompaniment, was a true hybrid of rock and jazz, with a strong element of soul as the bonding agent that held it together; Lipsius, Brecker, Weiss, and Halligan didn't just honk along on the choruses, but played complex, detailed arrangements; Katz played guitar solos as well as rhythm accompaniment, and Kooper's keyboards moved to the fore along with his singing. Their sound was bold, and it was all new when Blood, Sweat & Tears debuted on-stage at the Cafe au Go Go in New York in September 1967, opening for Moby Grape. Audiences at the time were just getting used to the psychedelic explosion of the previous spring and summer, but they were bowled over by what they heard -- that first version of Blood, Sweat & Tears had elements of psychedelia in their work, but extended it into realms of jazz, R&B, and soul in ways that had scarcely been heard before in one band. The songs were attractive and challenging, and the arrangements gave room for Lipsius, Brecker, and others to solo as well as play rippling ensemble passages, while Kooper's organ and Katz's guitar swelled in pulsing, shimmering glory. The group's debut album, Child Is Father to the Man, recorded in just two weeks late in 1967 under producer John Simon, was released to positive reviews in February 1968, and it seemed to portend a great future for all concerned. It remained one of the great albums of its decade, right up there with Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited and the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet. The only thing it didn't have, which those other albums did, was a hit single to get radio play and help drive sales. Child Is Father to the Man was out there on its own, invisible to AM radio and the vast majority of the public, awaiting word-of-mouth and whatever help the still fledgling rock press could give it, and the band's touring to promote it. Even as their debut was being recorded, however, elements of discontent had manifested themselves within the group that would sabotage their first tour and their future. At first, these were disagreements about repertory, which grew into issues of control, and then doubts about Kooper's ability as a lead singer. With Colomby and Katz taking the lead, the group broached the idea of getting a new vocalist and moving Kooper over exclusively to playing the organ and composing. By the end of March 1968, with Child Is Father to the Man nudging onto the charts and sales edging toward 100,000 copies and some momentum finally building, Blood, Sweat & Tears blew apart -- Kooper left the lineup, taking a producer's job at Columbia Records; at that same point, Randy Brecker announced his intent to quit. Ironically, at around the same time, Jerry Weiss, who'd actually favored Kooper's ouster, also headed for the door as well, to form the group Ambergris?, which lasted long enough to cut one album in 1970. That might've been the end of their story, except that Bobby Colomby and Steve Katz saw the opportunity to pull their own band out of this debacle. Columbia Records decided to stick with them while Katz and Colomby considered several new singers (including Stephen Stills), and actually got as far as auditioning and rehearsing with Laura Nyro before they found David Clayton-Thomas (born David Thomsett, September 13, 1941, Surrey, England). A Canadian national since the age of five, Clayton-Thomas at the time was performing with his own group at a small club in New York. He came aboard, with Halligan moved over to keyboards, Chuck Winfield (born February 5, 1943, Monessen, PA) and Lew Soloff (born February 20, 1944, Brooklyn, NY) on trumpets, and Jerry Hyman (born May 19, 1947, Brooklyn, NY) succeeding Halligan on the trombone. The new nine-member group reflected Colomby and Katz's vision of a band, which was heavily influenced by the Buckinghams, a mid-'60s outfit they'd both admired for its mix of soul influences and their use of horns -- toward that end, they got James William Guercio, who had previously produced the Buckinghams, as producer for their proposed album. Though Kooper was gone from Blood, Sweat & Tears, the group was forced to rely on a number of songs that he'd prepared for the new album. The resulting album, simply called Blood, Sweat & Tears, was issued 11 months after Child Is Father to the Man, in January 1969. Smoother, less challenging, and more traditionally melodic than its predecessor, it was ambitious in an accessible way, starting with its opening track, an adaptation of French expressionist composer Erik Satie's "Trois Gymnopedies" that transformed the languid early 20th century classical work into a pop standard. Clayton-Thomas was the dominant personality, with Lipsius and the other jazzmen in the band getting their spots in the breaks of each song -- equally important, and rather more telling the singles drawn from the album were all edited down, abbreviating or removing most of the featured spots for the jazz players. The first single by the new group, "You've Made Me So Very Happy," quickly rose to the number two spot on the charts and lofted the album to the top of the LP listings as well. That was followed by "Spinning Wheel" b/w "More and More," which also hit number two, which, in turn, was followed by the group's version of Laura Nyro's "And When I Die," another gold-selling single. When the smoke cleared, that one album had yielded a career's worth of hits in the space of six months, and the LP had won the Grammy as Album of the Year, selling three million copies in the bargain. So much demand was created for work by Blood, Sweat & Tears that the now 18-month-old Child Is Father to the Man, with the different singer and very different sound, made the charts anew in the summer and fall of 1969 and earned a gold record. The group soon faced the problem that every act with a massive success has had to confront -- where do you go from up? By fall 1969, with ten months of massive success behind them, the record company was eager for a follow-up album. The group began recording Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 while the second album was still selling many tens of thousands of copies every week. This time, the group would produce the album themselves, an unusual arrangement for what was still essentially a new group, but one the label agreed to, in the wake of the previous album's sales. And then issues of image and politics entered into the picture. When Al Kooper led the group, there was no question of how hip and tuned in Blood, Sweat & Tears were, to the rock culture and the counterculture -- by his own account, Kooper was a resident "freak" wherever he went in those days, and they were a daring enough ensemble to speak for themselves with their music. But the new group's music, and their use of horns, in particular, was more traditional, and it made them a little suspect among rock listeners. "Spinning Wheel," especially, was the kind of song that invited covers by the likes of Mel Tormé and Sammy Davis, Jr., and was the sort of "rock" hit that your parents didn't mind hearing. And "You've Made Me So Very Happy," for all of the soulfulness of David Clayton-Thomas' singing, also had a kind of jaunty pop-band edge that made the group seem closer in spirit to the Tonight Show band than, say, to the Rolling Stones. Compounding the uncertainty of just who and what Blood, Sweat & Tears were, and how cool they were, was a decision that they made in early 1970, to undertake a tour of Eastern Europe on behalf of the U.S. State Department. A few other rock bands had played Eastern Europe before, but never on behalf of a government, much less one that, at that particular time, was singularly unpopular with a lot of Blood, Sweat & Tears' potential fan base over the war in Vietnam. There was something horribly wrong with this picture in May 1970, but the group was oblivious to it. The reason for the tour was a practical one, according to some sources. Clayton-Thomas was a Canadian with very uncertain visa status in the United States, and the State Department indicated that it would be a lot more agreeable about their singer working here if the band did them this favor. It was a coup for the administration, getting one of the hottest rock acts in the world to represent the government in the Eastern bloc nations -- but it also took place just at the time of the Kent State massacre, in which four students were shot to death by National Guardsmen, an event that Nixon chose to capitalize on politically. And it got worse when they came back, after seeing the police in Bucharest, in particular, take a violent hand to any audience spontaneity; a statement was issued on the group's behalf, upon their return, trumpeting the virtues of American freedom -- this, one month after Kent State, with the murders of the students still an open wound and the reactionary rioting that had ensued in cities like New York (where the police had done nothing to stop a mob of construction workers from attacking anyone with long hair and invading City Hall) still fresh in peoples' minds. In June 1970, Blood, Sweat & Tears were the only act hipper than the Johnny Mann Singers putting out feel-good messages about the United States government. It was on their return to America, amid these dubious career moves, that Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 was released. Under the best of conditions, it would have been too much to hope that it could match its predecessor, and the truth was that it didn't. Despite some attractive songs, the album never achieved the same mix of accessibility and inspiration displayed by the earlier album. The album shipped gold and topped the LP charts for two weeks in mid-1970, and the single "Hi-De-Ho" made it to number 14, but the edge was off and the numbers didn't keep soaring week after week as the sales of their prior two LPs had. More troubling, the group was starting to get criticized in the rock press, not directly for their State Department tour -- though that couldn't have made a lot of reviewers and columnists too predisposed to go easy on the band -- but over who and what they were (and that was where the infamous tour did enter into the picture). A lot of rock critics felt that Blood, Sweat & Tears were a pretentious pop group that dabbled in horn riffs, while others argued that they were a jazz outfit trying to pass as a rock band -- either way, they weren't "one of us" or part of who we were. Oddly enough, some members of the jazz press liked them, but that was small help -- at any time after the early '40s, jazz reviewers in America reached no more than a small percentage of listeners. And regardless of what the critics said, a lot of serious jazz listeners who were the same age as the bandmembers thought the group was fluff, jazz-lite. Their image problem grew only worse when the group accepted an engagement to appear at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas -- the gambling mecca had never been known as friendly to current rock acts, and the group felt it was doing journeyman service by opening up Caesar's Palace to performers under 30. Instead, it multiplied their difficulties -- Vegas and what it represented were almost as bad as Nixon. In the meantime, another act, Chicago, produced by James William Guercio, broke big in 1970, also on the Columbia label, and avoided all of these pitfalls and internal problems and ended up stealing a huge chunk of Blood, Sweat & Tears' audience. It seemed as though, after an extraordinary run of luck, the group couldn't catch a break; their musical contribution to the Barbra Streisand film The Owl and the Pussycat did nothing to enhance their image. The group's fourth album, begun in early 1971, was the first that ran into real trouble in the making, which showed from the presence of three producers in the credits, and even Kooper was represented in the songwriting and arranging department. The fourth album, issued in June 1971, peaked at number ten on the charts, nowhere near the top, and none of its singles cracked the Top 30. It was around this time that the membership began shifting and splintering. By 1971, the group was basically divided into three factions, the rock rhythm section pitted against the jazz players, and the singer between them both, and no one happy with what anyone else was doing. Clayton-Thomas no longer enjoyed working with the rest of the band and chose to exit after the release of the fourth album to pursue a solo career. Despite this loss, the group carried on, and the label was willing to carry them a bit longer -- after all, Blood, Sweat & Tears had sold a lifetime's worth of LPs, and the two subsequent albums, though disappointing in its wake, were respectable successes by any conventional standard, and one always hopes that lightning will strike twice. Bob Doyle took the vocalist spot for a few months, and was then replaced by Jerry Fisher; elsewhere in the lineup, Fred Lipsius, who'd been there from the start and had put the original horn section together, finally called it quits and was replaced by Joe Henderson, who, in turn, was succeeded by Lou Marini, Jr., and Dick Halligan, who'd replaced Kooper on keyboards after the first band's breakup, was succeeded by Larry Willis, while Steve Katz got a second guitarist to play off of in the person of George Wadenius. All of these personnel changes led to an extended period of inactivity for the band, which Columbia Records made up for by releasing Blood, Sweat & Tears' Greatest Hits in 1972 -- this was probably a little sooner than they might otherwise have done it, under ideal circumstances, but the album became a Top 20 album and earned a gold record award and was a very popular catalog item for many years; one advantage that its original LP version offered the casual fan was that its songs were all the shorter, single edits of their hits, which were otherwise only available on the original 45 rpm records. In September 1972, this lineup released an album, appropriately enough called New Blood, which never made the Top 30 despite some good moments, accompanied by a single, "So Long Dixie," which didn't crack the Top 40. By this time, they'd turned more toward jazz, recognizing that the rock audience was slowly drifting out of their reach. Founding members Jim Fielder and Steve Katz called it quits during this period, Katz preferring to work in the more rock-oriented orbit of Lou Reed. With replacements aboard, Blood, Sweat & Tears continued performing, but their next LP, humorously (or was it ominously?) entitled No Sweat, released in 1973, never rose higher than number 72 on the charts, and that was a hit compared to its successor, Mirror Image, which peaked at number 149. By this time, people were passing through the lineup like a revolving door, and even Jaco Pastorius put in some time playing bass for the group, all without leaving much of an impression on the public. The plug might've been pulled right about here, but for the return of Clayton-Thomas, whose solo career had fizzled. Now fronting an outfit billed officially as Blood, Sweat & Tears Featuring David Clayton-Thomas, they released a modestly successful comeback album, New City, in 1975, which -- despite a few lapses in creativity and taste, and a range that encompassed Allen Toussant ("Life") and Randy Newman ("Naked Man," complete with a Mozartian digression) -- featured some of the group's best jazz sides in years as well as superb performances by Clayton-Thomas. The latter included a rare venture (for this group) into acoustic guitar blues on their rendition of John Lee Hooker's "One Room Country Shack." The accompanying single, a version of the Beatles' "Got to Get You Into My Life" (which, peculiarly enough, anticipated the single release of a remixed version of the British band's own recording) never made the Top 40, but the album did well enough to justify an ambitious tour that yielded a double-LP concert album, Live and Improvised, that was issued in Europe (and, 15 years later, in America). Columbia Records dropped the group in 1976, and a brief association with ABC Records led nowhere. The group was caught between their former Columbia rivals Chicago, who continued to get airplay and chart regularly with new releases, and purer jazz ensembles such as Return to Forever and Weather Report, who had captured the moment in the press and before the public. In the end, even Bobby Colomby, who had trademarked the group's name very early after Kooper's exit in 1968, gave up playing in the band, taking a corporate position at Columbia. Clayton-Thomas has kept the band alive in the decades since, fronting various lineups that continue to perform regularly and record sporadically, mostly updated renditions of their classic material. The advent of the CD era, and the release of expanded versions of their first two albums, fostered new interest in the group's early history, which was furthered by the 1990s release of Kooper's Soul of a Man, which presented new concert renditions of the 1967-era group's repertory. During the first decade of the 21st century, Wounded Bird Records also belatedly reissued the band's post-BST4 albums on CD, with surprising success -- New Blood and, even more so, New City, sounded quite good musically, divorced from their origins by almost 30 years. The group name remains alive behind Clayton-Thomas, and their recordings through 1972 -- especially the first album -- still elicit a powerful response from those millions who've heard them. © Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
BIO (B,S & T/DAVID CLAYTON-THOMAS)
For a brief period at the end of the '60s and the start of the '70s, Blood, Sweat & Tears , which fused a rock & roll rhythm section to a horn section, held out the promise of a jazz-rock fusion that could storm the pop charts. The band was organized in New York in 1967 out of the remnants of the Blues Project by keyboard player/singer Al Kooper and guitarist Steve Katz of that group and saxophonist Fred Lipsius . The rhythm section consisted of bassist Jim Fielder and drummer Bobby Colomby and the horn section was filled out by trumpeters Randy Brecker and Jerry Weiss and trombonist Dick Halligan . Al Kooper came up with the name when he was on the phone with a promoter, while gazing at a Johnny Cash album cover. The album was called, "Blood Sweat & Tears". The inspiration for the band name did not come from Winston Churchill's quote, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat", as was widely reported at the time. Their first gig was at the Village Theater (which later became the Fillmore East) as the opening act for the James Cotton Blues band. A couple of weeks later the band opened for Moby Grape at the Cafe A Go Go. They were a huge success and three record labels were willing to sign the group. They decided to sign Columbia, a label that Kooper already had a relation-ship with. In December 1967 they began recording their first album "Child Is Father To The Man", which was released on February 21 1968. The critics loved it and compared it to the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" and the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds". The album was considered as a mile stone in rock music and was awarded a Grammy nomination, but only hit # 47 in the charts. Al Kooper began working on the next BS&T album, searching for songs for follow-up material. On the first album, Kooper was given free hands to do what he could for BS&T. On the second album Katz and Colomby wanted to take a more active part in the development of the band and both of them wanted to get a new, better, stronger vocalist. After meeting with Kooper he decided to leave the band after their last gig at the Garrick Theatre in New York. Also Randy Brecker left the band to join the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band. He was replaced by Chuck Winfield. Jerry Weiss left as well, his place being taken by Lew Soloff. Dick Halligan took over the organ and Jerry Hyman was added on trombone. Now they started searching for a new singer. Laura Nyro, who happened to be dating Jim Fielder at the time, was invited to a rehearsal, but she decided not to join the band. Steven Stills was also approached, but he was busy working with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield on the "Super Sessions" album. Bobby Colomby then told the others of a virtually unknown singer named David Clayton-Thomas, and convinced them that his Blues-tinged style seemed perfect for the band. Clayton-Thomas had some hits in Canada with "the Bossmen" and sang briefly with a band called "Flying Machine". Born in Surrey, England, on Sept. 13th, 1941 as David Henry Thomsett of British-Canadian parents, the family moved to Toronto, Canada when he was age six. David had a troubled adolescence and was jailed a half-dozen times for vagrancy, parole violations and petty theft. While other teenagers in suburban Toronto were attending high school proms, David was a street kid, a loner, sleeping in parked cars, stealing food and clothing, learning how to survive and fight behind bars. When he was at Millbrook Reformatory he learned to play the guitar. An old guitar had been left behind by an outgoing inmate, and David claimed it. He began to practice alone, late into the night, and for the first time in his life he had a dream, a plan for the future. After his release, David made music his life, and steadily honed his skills in one band after another until Blood, Sweat and Tears approached him in 1969. The band also hired James William Guercio to produce their next album. If their first effort was a loose jazz blending melted together with rock, this album had a clearer delineation between jazz and rock. Straight-ahead rock songs and a jazzy part in the middle of each song. This was the formula that really did catch the fancy of the public. The album was released on December 11 1968 and launched three gold singles, "You've Made Me So Very Happy," "And When I Die" and "Spinning Wheel". The L.P. garnered five Grammy awards, including Album of the Year and Best Performance by a Male Vocalist. Suddenly B,S&T were as big as any band could be. Offers poured in for major concerts, TV appearances and jazz and rock festivals from coast to coast. They even played at the original Woodstock Festival. The month following Woodstock they began working on their next album. Before the album was released, they had to make a goodwill tour to East Europe, because Clayton-Thomas who was a Canadian citizen didn't have a green card. The members didn't like the idea of making a goodwill tour for the Nixon-administration but they had no choice if they wanted to keep Clayton-Thomas in the band. The tour was a major disaster. On the fist night, in Bucharest, the young Romanian audience jumped to its feet and shouted "USA". The Police responded by loosing attack German shepherds on the audience. The communist government gave orders to B,S&T, " more jazz ...less rhythm". After the return from the tour, their third album, "Blood, Sweat & Tears 3", struck gold upon it's release. The album contained a lot of high points, such as Goffin-King's "Hi-De-Ho", Laura Nyro's "He's A Runner", Traffic's "40,000 Headmen" and Clayton-Thomas' "Lucretia MacEvil" along with one of Steve Katz finest songs, "The Battle". On the album was also a version of Jagger-Richards' "Sympathy for the Devil", with an arrangement by Dick Halligan. "Hi-De-Ho" was released as a single and reached #14 in the charts. Jazz magazines praise their precision, their arrangements, and their musicianship. Contrary, rock critics call the group "slick and inflexible". Clayton-Thomas replied to the criticism."This band does more free blowing on stage than practically any rock band, but we do it within a very literate and educated framework. A lot of people say, it sounds so precise. Well that's the way these guys play. If you go to Juiliard for five or six years, you learn to play precisely." In September, "Lucretia MacEvil" was released as the next single and peaked at #29 in the charts. November saw the group play its first concert with a full symphony in New Orleans. They also recorded music for a Barbra Steisand, George Segal movie, "The Owl and the Pussycat". In January 1971, the group begin recording its next release in San Francisco. They recruited jazz writer/saxman/composer Don Heckman to co-produce. The sessions seem to drag on, with takes mounting up to the dozens. In a brief break from the recording, Blood, Sweat & Tears became one of the first rock bands to play Las Vegas, for which they received a lot of criticism. The band was charged with being hollow and pretentious, swapping its original rock audience for older, cabaret-oriented listeners. They were called a"lounge act" and that they had sold their soul for the money. Back in the studio again, they ask Al Kooper to come and help out with the album. Kooper, Colomby and Roy Halee co-produced the rest of the album. "B,S&T 4" was released at the end of June and it's the first album with mostly original tunes. It turns gold in a month. This time even the rock critics are impressed. Two singles are released from the album, "Go Down Gamblin'" and "Lisa, Listen To Me", neither of which do well on the pop charts. About this time, the band seemed to split into three separate fractions: the rockers, including most of the rhythm section; the jazzers, Colomby and most of the horn section; and the Vegas star, Clayton-Thomas. Each believes that the band has gone too far in the other direction. In January 1972, the split is total. David Clayton-Thomas leaves the band for a solo career. The decision was mutual, their musical ambitions were too different. Fred Lipsius left the band. The next month David Clayton-Thomas is replaced by the blind singer Bobby Doyle, once leader of the Bobby Doyle Trio. Joe Henderson replaces Fred Lipsius and guitarist George Wadenius, a member of the Swedish group "Made in Sweden", joins the band. The new lineup fails to gel and they start to look for another lead singer. Jerry Fisher is at this time recording singles in New York with "New Design", a subsidiary of Columbia Records (the BS&T label). His newly tracked recording session prompted an invitation to have a jam session with the group. After that, he's invited to join the band. Prior to joining BS&T, Jerry Fisher performed the nightclub circuits in Las Vegas, Tahoe, parts of his native Oklahoma and Texas. He had a sizeable following and was considered by one Texas music critic as "probably the greatest white blues singer in the business". All these changes mean time rehearsing and reorganizing instead of recording and Columbia Records releases a "Greatest hits" package. Eleven selections, seven singles chart entries, plus two album tracks from the celebrated debut album when Al Kooper lead the group, and two more from the Grammy-winning multi-platinum second album.The album contained the singles edits of the songs. The personal changes continued. Joe Henderson is replaced by Lou Marini Jr. Dick Halligan calls it a day and Larry Willis takes over as keyboard player. In the summer of '72, Blood, Sweat & Tears went in the studio again to record a new album. This time they choose mostly covers. At the end of August, the first new material to be released in 13 months, the single "So Long Dixie" is released, but stalls out at #44. The album is released a month later. A discouraged Steve Katz leaves the band along with Chuck Winfield, who is replaced by Tom Malone. There is no replacement for Steve Katz. As touring continued, Blood, Sweat and Tears begin gathering material for yet another album and in the spring of 1973 they are once again in the studio to record. The result "No Sweat" was released in June the same year and contained both originals and cover songs. The album this time is more rocking with "Roller Coaster" released as a single. The LP scores at #42 and another single, "Save Our Ship" is released from the album. The touring continues and so are the personal changes within the band. Longtimer Jim Fielder leaves and is replaced by Ron McClure, Lou Marini JR is replaced by Bill Tillman. Tom Malone leaves and Tony Klatka takes over. Lew Soloff also leaves the band. Jerry LaCroix, formerly a member of the Edgar Winter group, joins the band on sax and flute. He also sings, but Jerry Fisher is still the lead singer. In March and April 1974 the band spend most of the time in the studio for their forthcoming album and in July, "Mirror Image" is released. A song called,"Tell Me That I'm Wrong" is released as a single but only reaches #83. The album flops at #149. Jerry LaCroix didn't feel comfortable within the band, and he couldn't' handle Bobby Colomby. Basically he didn't care for Blood, Sweat and Tears style and he did not like to share lead vocal duties. He was more interested in his solo album "The Second Coming", that he recently had recorded. He once said that one of the reasons for him to join was that they ware going on a world tour and he hadn't seen the world. While they were in Australia he decided to quit. When they came back, he left the group after a gig in Central Park. Luther Kent, a blues singer from New Orleans was recruited as a new leadsinger, together with Jerry Fisher. Luther Kent had been singing with The Greek Fountains, a busy, popular band in demand regionally, then criss-crossed America with his own, 9-piece r&b band, "Blues, Inc". His voice could be described as powerful, rough and whiskey-drenched. Blood, Sweat and Tears never did any recordings with Luther Kent, who eventually quit to form "Trick Bag" with guitarist Charlie Brent. As 1975 began, David Clayton-Thomas returned to Blood, Sweat and Tears. Joe Giorgianni was added on trumpet, flugelhorn and in sessions during February, they recorded new songs for an album. 50 percent cover tunes (Janis Ian, Randy Newman, the Beatles, Blues Image) and 50 percent originals, including a song from one of Clayton-Thomas solo albums ("Yesterday's Music"). The L.P. called "New City" is released in April, and on the cover it says "Blood, Sweat & Tears featuring David Clayton-Thomas", to let people know that now it's the same band that made all those hits a few years ago. It's the first BS&T album in many years to get favourable reviews. Live bookings began to increase in quality and quantity, and the band experienced renewed popularity. Their revival of the Beatles "Got To Get You Into My Life" peaked at US #62, and the album hit #47. During this period, a live album was recorded and released in Europe and Japan as "In Concert". It's the same album that later was released as "Live and Improvised" in the U.S.A. In August 1976, an album called "More Than Ever" was released, but it was a disappointing seller. This was the weakest album they ever have put out, despite guest vocals by Patti Austin. It stalls at #165 and Columbia Records dropped the band. At this time, Bobby Colomby, B,S&T's sole remaining original member calls it a day. In 1977 the band is signed to ABC records and in November the same year, they recorded "Brand New Day". The album garnered positive reviews, but was not a major seller. The group continued to tour and personnel continued to fluctuate. In January 1978, they toured Europe. The band members at that time were, Clayton-Thomas on vocals, Dave Bargeron tuba, Anthony Klatka and Chris Albert trumpet, Gregory Herbert saxophone, Randy Bernsen guitar, Larry Willis keyboards, Neil Stubenhaus bass and Bobby Economou on drums. After a concert in Amsterdam, Gregory Herbert took an overdose of cocaine and died. The band returned home and separated. In late 1979, David Clayton-Thomas reformed a new Canadian version of Blood, Sweat & Tears with Bobby Economou. On guitar he recruited Robert Piltch, one of Canada's finest young guitarists and his brother David on bass. The other members were: Bruce Cassidy from Bruce Cassidy Band on trumpet, and arranger. Earl Seymour - Saxophone, Flute, Vernon Dorge - Alto, soprano sax, flute, Richard Martinez - Organ, piano, clavinet. Signed to MCA Records in 1980, this incarnation of Blood, Sweat & Tears first album was called "Nuclear Blues" and featured cover versions of Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression" and Henry Glover's blues classic, "Drown In My Own Tears". But the face of music had drifted away from the style that made Blood, Sweat and Tears popular and the band disbanded again later the same year. The Group faded from view for pretty much the next five years, with Colomby and Clayton-Thomas occasionally getting together for a few live shows here and there. In 1985, David teamed up with hard-driving young manager, Larry Dorr, formerly a tour manager with he band. Larry convinced David that there was still life in the once proud name Blood, Sweat & Tears, and that with the right musicians, good management, and strong leadership, it could once again be an attraction on concert stages around the world. They recruited musical director/trumpeter Steve Guttman, graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and Blood, Sweat & Tears began performing with prestigious American symphonies like the Detroit, the Houston, the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestras. Larry Dorr was right. A revitalized BS&T under his direction and David's leadership came storming back to the concert stages of the world, playing international jazz festivals, symphonies, concert halls and casino show rooms. In the late 80's the personnel of the band stabilized and they became a regular group again. Due to legal hassles over use of the name "Blood, Sweat and Tears"' there haven't been any new albums released. In 1994, David Clayton-Thomas and Blood Sweat & Tears horn section: Jerry Sokolow - trumpet, Steve Guttman - trumpet, Tim Ries - Sax and Charlie Gordon - Trombone, made a record with the Hungarian jazz drummer Leslie Mandoki. The album was called "People". In 1996 David Clayton-Thomas was induced into the Canadian Music hall of Fame. and later recorded an album that was called "The Uptown Album". It was recorded live at Ornette Coleman's Harlem studio and was produced by David himself. It was released in Canada in November 1997 and in the US and the rest of the world in January 1998. In 1997 another album called "People In Room no. 8" was released. Later in 1998, David recorded a solo album called "Bloodlines" that featured some of the musicians that had been in Blood Sweat and Tears over the years. Blood, Sweat and Tears continued to tour and even though David Clayton-Thomas is regarded as "the voice of Blood, Sweat & Tears", it is the skill and the musicianship of all those very talented musicians that have passed through the band that made this group so special. In 2007, they were sharing the stage with Chuck Negron, formerly of Three Dog Night, in a series of shows across the US. © www.classicbands.com/bst.html
