About The Artist
Blood, Sweat & Tears (also known as "BS&T") is an American music group, originally formed in 1967 in New York City. Since its beginnings in 1967, the band has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has passed a multitude of musical styles. What the band is most known for, from its start, is the fusing of rock, blues, pop music, horn arrangements and jazz improvisation into a hybrid that came to be known as "jazz-rock". Unlike "jazz fusion" bands, which tend toward virtuostic displays of instrumental facility and some
experimentation with electric instruments, the songs of Blood, Sweat & Tears merged the stylings of rock, pop and R&B/soul music with big band, while also adding elements of 20th Century Classical and small combo jazz traditions.
The Al Kooper era
Al Kooper, Jim Fielder, Fred Lipsius, Randy Brecker, Jerry


Katz, and Bobby Colomby formed the original band. The creation of the group was fueled by the "brass-rock" ideas of The Buckinghams and its producer, James William Guercio, as well as the early 1960s Roulette-era Maynard Ferguson Orchestra (according to Kooper's autobiography).
"Blood, Sweat & Tears" was the name chosen by Al Kooper, inspired by both the 1963 album with this title by Johnny Cash and after a late-night gig in which Kooper played with a bloody hand. Kooper was the group's initial bandleader, having insisted on that position based on his experiences with The Blues Project, his previous band with Steve Katz, which had been organized as an egalitarian collective. Jim Fielder was from Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention and had played briefly with Buffalo Springfield. But undoubtedly, Kooper's fame as a high-profile contributor to various historic sessions of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and others was the catalyst for the prominent debut of Blood, Sweat & Tears in the musical counterculture of the mid-sixties .
Al, Bobby, Steve & Jim did a few shows as a quartet at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York City in September 1967 opening for Moby Grape . Fred Lipsius then joined the others two months later. A few more shows were played as a quintet, including one at the Fillmore East in New York. Lipsius then recruited the other three, who were New York jazz horn players he knew. The final lineup debuted late November ’67 at The Scene in NYC. The band was a hit with the audience, who liked the innovative fusion of jazz with acid rock and psychedelia. After signing to Columbia Records, the group released perhaps one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the late 1960s, Child Is Father to the Man, featuring the Harry Nilsson song, "Without Her", and perhaps Kooper's most memorable blues number, "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know". The album cover was considered quite innovative showing the band members sitting and standing with child-sized versions of themselves. Characterized by Kooper's penchant for studio gimmickry, the album slowly picked up in sales amidst growing artistic differences between the founding members. Colomby and Katz wanted to move Kooper exclusively to keyboard and composing duties, while hiring a stronger vocalist for the group.
The music of Blood, Sweat & Tears slowly achieved commercial success alongside similarly configured ensembles such as Chicago and the Electric Flag. Kooper was forced out of the group and became a record producer for the Columbia label, but not before arranging some songs that would be on the next BS&T album. The group's trumpeters, Randy Brecker and Jerry Weiss, also left after the album was released, and were replaced by Lew Soloff and Chuck Winfield. Brecker joined Horace Silver's band with his brother Michael, and together they eventually formed their own horn-dominated musical outfits, Dreams and The Brecker Brothers. Jerry Weiss went on to start the similarly-styled group Ambergris.
The David Clayton-Thomas era
Colomby and Katz then started looking for singers, considering Stephen Stills and Laura Nyro before deciding upon David Clayton-Thomas, a Canadian singer, born in Surrey, England. Reportedly, folk singer Judy Collins had seen him perform at a New York City club and was so taken and moved by his performance that she told her friends Bobby Colomby and Steve Katz about him (knowing that they were looking for a new lead singer to front the band).[3] With her prodding, they came to see him perform and were so impressed with him that Clayton-Thomas was offered to become the lead singer of a re-constituted Blood Sweat & Tears. Halligan took up the organ chores and Jerry Hyman joined on trombone. New trumpeters Lew Soloff and Chuck Winfield brought the band up to nine total members.
Eponymous 1969 album Blood, Sweat & TearsBlood, Sweat & Tears, the group's self-titled second album, was produced by James William Guercio and released in 1969. The album was much more pop-oriented, featuring decidedly fewer compositions from within the band. The record quickly hit the top of the charts, winning Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards over The Beatles' Abbey Road, among other nominees. Blood, Sweat & Tears spawned three major hit singles: a cover of Berry Gordy and Brenda Holloway's "You've Made Me So Very Happy" (US #2), Clayton-Thomas' "Spinning Wheel" (US #2), and a version of Laura Nyro's "And When I Die" (US #2). The commercial and critical acclaim enjoyed by the band in 1969 culminated in an appearance at the Woodstock Festival, in which the band enjoyed headliner status.
Arguably, as a result of Al Kooper's departure, Blood, Sweat & Tears had difficulty maintaining its status as a counterculture icon at a time when record company executives deemed this characteristic important as a tool to lure young consumers. This was compounded by a United States Department of State-sponsored tour of Eastern Europe in 1970. Any voluntary association with the government was highly unpopular at the time and the band was ridiculed for it. In retrospect, it is now known that the State Department subtly requested the tour in exchange for more amicability on the issuance of a visa to Clayton-Thomas.
After returning to the U.S., the group released Blood, Sweat & Tears 3; which was another popular success, spawning hit singles with a cover of Carole King's "Hi-De-Ho" and another Clayton-Thomas composition, "Lucretia MacEvil". While this was a successful attempt to re-create the amalgam of styles found on the previous album, the band once again depended almost exclusively on cover material. Album reviews sometimes focused solely upon the band's willingness to work with the U.S. State Department, without bothering to discuss the actual music. Compounding the image problems of the band was a decision to play at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip, widely seen at the time as a mainstream venue for acts that did not engage in radical politics. In 1970, the band provided music for the soundtrack of the film comedy The Owl and the Pussycat , further damaging the group's underground reputation.
Following this period of controversy, the group reconvened with jazz writer Don Heckman serving as their producer and, with Dave Bargeron replacing Jerry Hyman, recorded material that would comprise their fourth album, BS&T 4. For the first time since the first album, Blood, Sweat & Tears presented a repertoire of songs composed almost entirely from within the group. Included on the album is a cover of former member Al Kooper's "Holy John (John The Baptist)". Loaded with hooks and a wide variety of moods (featuring such songs as "Go Down Gamblin'", "Lisa Listen To Me", "High on a Mountain", "Redemption"), Blood, Sweat & Tears 4 broke into the album charts, resulting in a gold record for the group. Unfortunately, none of the singles from the album managed to land in the Top 30 on any of the singles charts, and the period after the release of the fourth album began the group's commercial decline.
The Jerry Fisher era
Difficulties arose inside the group between its pop-rock and jazz factions, with Clayton-Thomas refusing to pick sides and eventually choosing to leave to pursue a solo career in early January 1972. He was briefly replaced by Bobby Doyle, and then Jerry Fisher who went on to front the next generation of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Fred Lipsius left and was replaced by jazz legend Joe Henderson (who did not stay long enough to record), before Lou Marini settled into the new lineup. Another founding member, Dick Halligan, also departed, replaced by jazz pianist Larry Willis, and Swedish guitarist Georg Wadenius joined as lead guitarist around the same time. Amidst the personnel changes, a Greatest Hits album was released, which hit the top 20 and eventually went gold. This record would be the band's final gold album.
Cover of 1972 album Greatest HitsDuring this period of time, a proliferation of bands employing the jazz-rock stylings of the group began to compete in the popular music marketplace. Among these groups were Chase, Ides of March and Lighthouse, offering testimony to the legacy of Blood, Sweat & Tears.
The new edition of Blood, Sweat & Tears released New Blood, which found the group moving into a more overtly jazz-fusion repertoire. The album broke through the top-40 charts (the last BS&T LP to do so) and spawned a single ("So Long Dixie", chart peak: 44) that received some airplay. Also included on the record was a cover version of Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage," featuring the voice/guitar soloing of Georg Wadenius.
In mid-1973, Katz, who was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the group's leaning towards jazz fusion, decided to leave. Winfield departed as well and was replaced by Tom Malone. Blood, Sweat & Tears' next album, No Sweat (1973), continued in a jazz-fusion vein and featured intricate horn work. The 1974 release Mirror Image saw the addition of vocalist/saxophonist Jerry LaCroix (formerly of Edgar Winter's White Trash), sax player Bill Tillman, bassist Ron McClure and the exodus of Tom Malone and longtime members Lew Soloff and Jim Fielder. This recording features the adoption of a sound pitched between Philly Soul and the mid-1970s albums by Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, along with aspirations to Chick Corea's jazz-fusion group Return to Forever.
You Made Me So Very Happy
I lost at love before
Got mad and closed the door
But you said try just once more
I chose you for the one
Now we're having so much fun
You treated me so kind
I'm about to lose my mind
You made me so very happy
I'm so glad you came into my life
The others were untrue
But when it came to loving you
I'd spend my whole life with you
Cause you came and you took control
You touched my very soul
You always showed me that
Loving you is where it's at
You made me so very happy
I'm so glad you came into my life
Thank you baby, yeah, yeah
I love you so much it seems
You're even in my dreams
I can hear, baby
I can hear you calling
I'm so in love with you
All I ever want to do is
Thank you, baby, thank you, baby
You made me so very happy
I'm so glad you came into my life
You made me so very happy
You made me so, so very happy, baby
I'm so glad you came into my life
I wanna thank you, girl
Every day of my life
I wanna thank you
You made me so very happy
Oh, I wanna spend my life with you
Thank you, baby, thank you, baby
Thank you, baby, thank you, baby