Blood, Sweat & Tears

Another album reaching its fiftieth anniversary is the eponymous second album by Blood, Sweat & Tears, the one that the most casual fan thinks of when they think of that band. The lineup changed considerably from the first album to the second, with the founder, Al Kooper, leaving the band, and a new singer, David Clayton-Thomas, joining.

Blood, Sweat & Tears were a jazz-rock band, very much like Chicago in its early days. There was a lot of brass, and in an eleven-and-half-minute instrumental called "Blues Part II," what sounds like improvisation (and a sampling of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love"). But four consecutive songs on the CD are the core of what the band is remembered for, even though they are still together.

Take a look at their Wikipedia page and look at past members. It's over one hundred names. Perhaps that's why they haven't been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--would every member be inducted? Certainly the nine members of their second album would be. It won a Grammy Award for Best Album, spent seven weeks at number one, and had three top-five singles. I distinctly remember hearing their songs on my parents' car radio when I was a lad.

On this album at least, BST mostly covered other artists. The entire band wrote "Blues Part II," but they also recorded "And When I Die," by Lauro Nyro, "God Bless the Child," by Billie Holliday, "You Make Me So Very Happy," by Berry Gordy, and "Smiling Phases" by Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi. The album begins and ends with "Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie."

Clayton-Thomas, a leather-lunged singer who I think was instrumental in the album's success, wrote the top hit, "Spinning Wheel," which is a perfect rock and roll record. It deservedly won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement, by saxophonist Fred Lipsius. The lyric is instantly recognizable to any Baby Boomer:

"What goes up
Must come down
Spinning wheel, got to go 'round
Talk about your troubles
It's a crying sin
Ride a painted pony
Let the spinning wheel spin."

What sells the song, in addition to Clayton-Thomas' phrasing, is the magnificent horn section. Alan Rubin, who was not a member of the band, filled in on trumpet, and wow, outside of Chicago (the group, not the city) it's some of the best trumpet work I've heard on a pop song.

The lyric for "And When I Die" was written by Laura Nyro, but BST put their stamp on it with something rather ingenious--they made it sound like a Western ballad. There's a melancholy harmonica, the rhythm of a cantering horse, the tinkling of a saloon piano, and even horse-hoof sound effects. All the while Clayton-Thomas is singing about not worrying about death, unless there's a hell, then he's worried.

"And when I die,
and when I'm gone,
There'll be one child born
In this world to carry on"

I'm looking over some of the other BST albums since then (there are several more, but none after 1980) and I don't recognize any of the songs, so if you want to capture the essence of the band at its popularity, this is the album to get.