Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

BLOOD, SWEAT and TEARS

Jazz-rock group formed late '60s by former Dylan session man Al Kooper after leaving Blues Project. The original rock quartet included Steve Katz (b 9 May 1945, NYC; also ex-Project), guitar; Jim Fielder (b 4 October 1947, Denton TX; ex-Buffalo Springfield, Mothers of Invention), bass; Bobby Colomby (b 20 December 1944, NYC), drums; augmented by four-man horn section: Randy Brecker, Jerry Weiss (b 1 May 1946, NYC), trumpets; Dick Halligan (b 29 August 1943, Troy, NY), trombone; Fred Lipsius (b 19 Nov. '43, NYC), sax. First LP Child Is Father To The Man '68 (Columbia) mixed brash blues/rock with Maynard Ferguson-inspired horn arrangements on tunes by Carole King, Randy Newman, others, Kooper contributing keyboards, vocals. Their attempt at fusion was lent credibility when 40 overseas officials of the U.S. Information Agency were required to attend a Washington concert '68 as part of a programme to acquaint them with 'cultural developments in the homeland'; the band later made an Iron Curtain State Dept-funded tour.

They lost their main inspiration when Kooper left, replaced by David Clayton Thomas (b 13 September 1941, Surrey, England), a naturalized Canadian with a big frame asnd voice to match; the trumpets also left, replaced by Lew Soloff (b 20 February 1944, NYC; d there 8 March 2015), Chuck Winfield (b 5 February 1943, Monessen, PA). Against the odds, their second album Blood Sweat And Tears '69 hit a successful formula: seven weeks at no. 1 on the album chart, hit singles with Laura Nyro's 'And When I Die', Brenda Holloway's 'You Made Me So Very Happy', Clayton Thomas's own 'Spinning Wheel'; all made USA no. 2, the last two becoming cabaret standards worldwide. The net was spread equally wide for material on Blood Sweat And Tears 3 '70, yielding top 20 single 'Hi De Ho'. The loss of producer James William Guercio to rival band Chicago was a major blow but the album topped the chart, though brass-laden remakes of Rolling Stones and Traffic material struck some fans as pretentious. More personnel changes ensued; Clayton Thomas left '72, replaced by bearded lookalike Jerry Fisher, then Bobby Doyle, Jerry La Croix; he rejoined '74, but the audience had moved on. They sold 35 million records for CBS in their heyday; Clayton Thomas once said 'there are only 20 cities in US with concert halls big enough for us to play'; soldiered on through '70s with only Colomby remaining from the first album. By Nuclear Blues '80 on MCA few were listening.