Does anybody out there actually LIKE Blood, Sweat & Tears? I mean, is it even POSSIBLE? Actually I know it’s possible because my friend Rick Piel likes them, openly admits it, and I’m doing my best to forgive him. Then again, what’s NOT to like about them? The bloviating brass? The rearguard horn arrangements of swingin’ Fred Lipsius? The big-boned vocal cords of the burly Mr. David Clayton-Thomas? The occasional classical flourishes? Hell, the real question is why doesn’t EVERYBODY love them?
Well, part of the answer lies in the fact that Blood, Sweat & Tears were the epitome of unhip. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing—the Carpenters were so unhip that the renowned music critic Richard M. Nixon labelled them “Young America at its best.” But BS&T thought they were hip, when in fact they made the exploding dicks in Three Dog Night sound downright groovy by comparison.
And they didn’t help their own case by being the first rock band to wow the squares at Las Vegas, which automatically made them square by association. You are who you play for. Nor did they up their street cred any by agreeing to do a US State Department-sponsored tour of the Eastern bloc. Doing the bidding of the Nixon Administration didn’t win them any friends in the counterculture, and the counterculture let them know it—Abbie Hoffman and his Yippie pals showed up at a BS&T gig at Madison Square Garden after the band’s return to throw shit at them, and by shit I mean the kind you make with your butt.
But BS&T’s hip cred—which basically went out the window when band co-founder and certifiably hip personage Al Kooper walked out the door and the Broadway-ready David Clayton-Thomas walked in after the band’s 1968 debut LP—isn’t really the issue here. What made Blood, Sweat & Tears such a nauseating proposition was the horn-heavy band’s diabolical commitment to a big, brassy sound that combined fugitive elements of rock, jazz, R&B and (gak!) classical. The fusion was inarguable innovative—but then again so was the weaponization of anthrax—and made them the envy of every high school jazz band instructor from San Jose to Saigon.
But the coup de grace were the rotund vocalizations of former Canadian jailbird Clayton-Thomas, who made his every last performance a veritable show tunes spectacular. You often hear the word “soulful.” Me, I’d place him squarely in the “Old Man River goes to Vegas and beats Engelbert Humperdinck at his own game” category, which admittedly is a limited one. I like what The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau had to say about him, to wit: “Just figured out how David Clayton-Thomas learned vocal projection: by belching. That’s why when he gets really excited he sounds as if he’s about to throw up.” Before adding, “… he gets me so excited I feel like I’m about to throw up.” I second that regurgitation.
Of course none of this stopped Blood, Sweat & Tears from becoming wildly successful, which just goes to show you that vomiting is more popular than it’s given credit for. The band’s eponymous 1968 sophomore LP topped the Billboard charts for an unseemly amount of time, and spawned such beloved eructations as “Spinning Wheel,” “And When I Die,” and “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy.” And its 1970 follow-up, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3, followed its predecessor to the top of the pop charts, proving that hurling, not baseball, is America’s national pastime.
That said, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 wound up being a commercial letdown and the beginning of the end for the band as a cash cow. Its 1971 successor was a relative flop, and after its release Clayton-Thomas and two other members split, and that was pretty much it. And there are mucho good reasons why Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 was such a disappointment after the demoralizing (for me) success of Blood, Sweat & Tears.
And those mucho good reasons are called songs, which on the band’s third album tended towards lukewarm or sometimes outrageously bad covers and a trio of originals, only one of which is tolerable. On Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 the band gave into their worst impulses—the Rolling Stones cover would have scored high on my 100 Worst Songs of All Time list had I known it existed. About the ONLY thing to be said for Blood, Sweat and Tears 3 is it doesn’t have “Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie” on it. They inflicted that one on an innocent audience on their previous album.
The band opens Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 with a cover of Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “Hi-De-Ho.” I can’t listen to it without visualizing the seven dwarves singing it, which is not a good thing, and the horns that open it are so ear-piercingly abrupt and in-your-face that I can’t help but recoil in horror. Then there’s that full-bodied organ that punctuates the horn blasts, and Clayton-Thomas’ deeply felt vocal performance, which is too precious by far. There’s no denying the guy can belt it out, but as always he gives the impression he’s on a theater stage somewhere, butchering Shakespeare, and the chorus of voices that come in later are pure shuck.
But “Hi-De-Ho” is a veritable classic of understatement in comparison to “The Battle,” a risibly overblown folk-classical brass abomination that prominently features the harpsichord of Dick Halligan and the oh-so-sensitive vocals of guitarist Steve Katz, which actually make me miss Big Dave. At least I get a good laugh out of the lines, “And here I’m standing naked/Laughing madly at the sun/Though I wanted to sleep late today/The Battle’s just begun”—they remind me that the emperor wears no clothes.
Clayton-Thomas’ conjoined “Lucretia MacEvil” and “Lucretia MacEvil Reprise” are the only songs on the album I can stomach. Sure, the exploding horns at song’s start gave me tinnitus, and exacerbated the condition as the song goes on. That said, Clayton-Thomas is almost bearable when in growling mode (even if he does sound like he’s acting), the trumpet solo at the end generates real electricity and the song’s a bona fide hard-charging rocker, at least by BS&T’s abysmally low standards. Take away the horns and I might actually listen to the thing. But what’s a horn band without horns?
“The Sweat’s” cover of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” comes off as perfunctory. The band sounds enervated, as if they lacked the energy to do their usually stellar job of utterly destroying the original in order to save it. Which isn’t to say that BS&T don’t lard the relatively spartan original to the point where you want to put it on a diet. The jazzy approach distracts, the horns add unnecessary padding, and about the only thing positive to be said about the song is that Clayton-Thomas eschews his usual bull-in-a-china-shop approach to singing—his relative restraint is almost commendable.
The cover of The Band’s “Lonesome Suzie” is overbaked—Blood, Sweat & Tears (naturally, or perhaps I should say unnaturally) forego the lovely simplicity of the original in favor of a fussy arrangement that trips over its own feet. And while Richard Manuel’s delicate and subtle vocals conveyed real pathos, Clayton-Thomas turns the song into an ornate set piece—he’s all histrionics, from mock-soulful opening to closing sigh. His performance is pure Vegas schmaltz, and the backing vocalists and big band horns finish the destruction job. On “Lonesome Suzie” The Band produced a new kind of American roots music—on their cover BS&T dig up the roots by the roots and replant decorative flugelhorn.
“Symphony for the Devil/Sympathy for the Devil” opens side two, and it’s a landmark in song humiliation. Never before, I swear, have I heard such a travesty—I’m surprised the original didn’t go into hiding, or better yet sue for defamation of character. Dick Halligan’s opening horn-poisoned “symphony” (roll over Beethoven!) is meant to sound menacing, but what I hear is bad cartoon music—I can practically see Sylvester J. Pussycat Sr. sneaking up on Tweety Bird.
And things get downright laughable with the drum roll and frantic horn blare, immediately after which Clayton-Thomas arrives in a puff of satanic dramatics. It’s the role of a lifetime for David, and he goes at it with a shuck and jive determination that is demonically ridiculous. Clayton-Thomas isn’t the devil—he’s deviled ham, and if you’re smart you’ll leave him in the can. Then the band goes Poconos resort band—you get horns out the wazoo, and the band goes at a fair clip until they abruptly stomp on the brakes to give Halligan the opportunity to play some jive jazz piano while the horns ham it up even more than Clayton-Thomas.
The saxophone solo that follows ain’t bad, but it’s quickly followed by a royal horn flourish and what sounds like Carl Palmer’s gong. Then, and this is the best part, you get this whispered section (“Just as every cop is a criminal etc. etc.”) that starts with one person who is then joined by a gaggle of fellow whisperers, who turn their whisper into a satanic chant. But I’m wrong, the REAL best part is when Clayton-Thomas leaps back into the melodrama with a really cheesy “Pleased to meet you, hope you know my name!” As a matter of fact, I do, and it’s David Clayton-Hambone. Why, you’re almost glad when the song goes back into symphony mode, and my only question is why they didn’t call the song “Symphony for the Devil/Sympathy for the Devil/Symphony for the Devil (Reprise).” Blood, Sweat & Tears are pompous like that.
The band’s cover of Laura Nyro’s “He’s a Runner” really goes through some changes. It begins its benighted life as a rather dull take on Nyro’s version. The horns are blessedly muted but pure Dullsville, and Clayton-Thomas is unusually restrained—someone must have slipped some Thorazine into his hot chocolate. Then we get this “hep” jazz interlude during which the Thorazine wears off, after which the band goes full-tilt Dave Brubeck—they can play cool jazz, cool! Then the band starts the whole song over again from the beginning, sounding so tasteful you’ll wish you didn’t have taste buds.
BS&T take Joe Cocker and Chris Stainton’s “Somethin’ Comin’ On” at a jazzy gallop, at least at the beginning—you get some funky bass, the drums and organ come in, and then here come the big-and-tall-men’s clothing store vocals of David and the horns, both with the “overkill” dial turned up to eleven. Then things get funky and the big man gets so worked up he growls “Good god!” after which the proceedings come to a whiplash-inducing halt and the guys go West Coast bebop on ya.
It could be worse, believe me; the walking bass doesn’t need a cane, the sax solo is tasteful, and when the boys really go wild, well wow, although Katz’s jazz guitar is jive and the organ solo is chaff. Then the band goes full big band and it’s exit stage left or right (whichever is closer) for yours truly. And naturally David comes back, of course he does, he wouldn’t be David if he didn’t, to shut off the lights.
The band’s “translation” of Traffic’s folk-rocker “40,000 Headsmen” into Big Bandese is unfortunate; from limpid Stevie Winwood Anglico-mysto-folk to the brash and brutal brass knuckles approach of BS&T is a very long bridge too far. The original can put you to sleep—the Sweat’s version will leave you wanting to be put down. It opens with some nifty nighty-night music box gratis Herr Lipsius, then some keyboards and a flute come in, followed by Clayton-Thomas, giving it the good old Merry Olde English try.
It’s all very faux-folkie, and I almost heaved a sigh of relief when BS&T reverted to their funky brass self. The tempo picks up for a minute, then the band breaks into a tres jazzy jam session complete with horn fisticuffs and an unobjectionable trumpet solo. Then we’re back to the funky stuff, and then back to the horn blurt, and on it goes until the music box comes back to put you to sleep forever.
Great bands have been known to put out awful albums and awful bands have been known to put out great albums, but what we have here is a truly awful band putting out a truly awful album, in effect fulfilling your every hope and expectation. Blood, Sweat & Tears were probably the worst major band of their time—they made their successor in the horn-band sweepstakes Chicago sound like The Beatles—and they achieved this lofty goal through lots of blood, sweat and tears. Unfortunately the bodily fluids weren’t theirs. They belonged to us.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D-
