About Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears is an American jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967, noted for a combination of brass with rock instrumentation. BS&T has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a wide range of musical styles. Their sound has merged rock, pop and R&B/soul music with big band jazz.
The group's self-titled second album spent seven weeks atop the U.S. charts in 1969 and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1970. It contained the hit recordings "And When I Die", "You've Made Me So Very Happy", and "Spinning Wheel". All of these peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The follow-up album, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3, also reached number one in the U.S.
In addition to original music, the group is known for arrangements of popular songs by Laura Nyro, James Taylor, Carole King, the Band, the Rolling Stones, Billie Holiday and many others. The group has also adapted music from Erik Satie, Thelonious Monk and Sergei Prokofiev into their arrangements.
The group was inspired by the "brass-rock" of the Buckinghams and their producer, James William Guercio, as well as the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra. BS&T's success paralleled that of similarly configured ensembles such as Chicago and the Electric Flag, but by the mid-1970s the group's popularity had declined.
Al Kooper , Bobby Colomby , Steve Katz , and Jim Fielder played at the Village Theatre in New York City on September 16, 1967, with James Cotton Blues Band opening. Kooper was the initial singer and musical director, having insisted on that position based on his work with the Blues Project, his previous band with Katz.
Fred Lipsius joined the others a month later. A few more shows were played before Lipsius recruited horn players Dick Halligan, Randy Brecker, and Jerry Weiss. The octet debuted at the Cafe Au Go Go on November 17–19, 1967, then played The Scene the following week. Audiences were impressed with the innovative fusion of contemporary styles. After signing to Columbia Records, the group released Child Is Father to the Man which reached number 47 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart in the United States.
Artistic differences quickly developed. Colomby and Katz wanted to hire a stronger lead vocalist. This led to the departure of Kooper in April 1968. Prior to leaving Kooper had already arranged some songs that would be on the second BS&T album. He was soon hired as a record producer at Columbia. Trumpeters Randy Brecker and Jerry Weiss also left and were replaced by Lew Soloff and Chuck Winfield. Brecker joined Horace Silver's band. Jerry Weiss went on to start the similarly styled group Ambergris.
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