CoronaVinyl Day 282 (B): Blood, Sweat & Tears by Blood, Sweat & Tears

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I meant to post this yesterday, but ended up working until 2 a.m., which is always fun.  Today's CoronaVinyl category is "B," and we're listening to Blood, Sweat & Tears' eponymous second album from 1968.

Blood, Sweat & Tears was one of the biggest bands around for a few years, and then they just kind of disappeared.  They formed in New York in 1967, initially led by late '60s blues rocker Al Kooper, who left the band in April 1968.  The band then recruited David Clayton-Thomas to be the lead singer, which proved to be a fortuitous marriage.  I've always thought Clayton-Thomas was an underrated lead singer from the late '60s/early '70s, along the lines of Burton Cummings from The Guess Who or Jim Peterik from Ides of March (who later formed Survivor), with a husky, bluesy voice that made him sound much other than his 27 years at the time.

With a full brass section, Blood, Sweat & Tears was one of the first jazz rock bands, though I'd say their jams are not just jazzy, but also have elements of the blues, psychedelic rock, and early prog rock.  But anyway, after their first album with Kooper was a minor success, but didn't yield any charting songs, their self-titled second album was a smash.  It was one of the first albums recorded using 16 tracks, and it helped to emphasize the band's lush sound, courtesy of the fact that there were like ten people in the band.  The album went to #1 on the Billboard album chart for seven weeks and #1 on the Canadian album chart for eight weeks, and it eventually went quadruple platinum in the U.S. and sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.  It stayed on the Billboard album chart for over two years, and it won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Three songs from the album -- "Spinning Wheel," "You've Made Me So Very Happy," and "And When I Die" -- went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.  And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the nearly 12-minute psychedelic jazzy blues jam, "Blues-Part II," which has renditions of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" and Howlin' Wolf' "Spoonful," among others.  On the strength of this album, the band was a headliner at Woodstock, though their short-sighted manager ordered the film crew to turn off their cameras after the band's first song, so their performance wasn't captured like many of the other now-iconic performances from the festival were.

After this album, their next one also went to #1 on the Billboard album chart in 1970, and the one after that went to #10 in 1971, and they had three more Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.  Clayton-Thomas left the band in early 1972 to pursue a solo career, and the band continued recording albums with varying lineups until 1980, but they never had another Top 40 hit and their highest-charting studio album only reached #32 on the Billboard album chart.

The Spotify version of the album includes two bonus live track from a 1968 show at the legendary Cafe Au Go-Go in New York (before the album had been released), including a nearly 19-minute version of "Smiling Phases."

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Smiling Phases"
The band gives a jazzy rock send-up to this cover of a Traffic song, which had been on the U.S. version of Traffic's Mr. Fantasy album from the year before.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "You've Made Me So Very Happy"
This is another cover, this time of a Motown song from the year before by Brenda Holloway.  BST's rendition is soulful and psychedelic, and Clayton-Thomas's vocals are fantastic.