URBAN ASPIRINES: Blood Sweat & Tears : Child Is Father to the Man 1968 (The First Album)

Friday, February 01, 2013

Blood Sweat & Tears : Child Is Father to the Man 1968 (The First Album)

They were originally formed in 1967 in New York City by BLUES PROJECT defectors,Al Cooper and Steve Katz,together with rhythm section Bobby Colomby and Jim Fielder.The other members were:Fred Lipsius, Randy Brecker, Jerry Weiss and Dick Halligan.
Al Kooper named the band "Blood, Sweat & Tears" after Johnny Cash's 1963 album Blood, Sweat and Tears.

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 is one of bandleader Al Kooper's most enduring works and album introduced the idea of the big band to rock and roll and paved the way for such groups as Chicago.

The band began to court the media and became the critic's darlings for a short time (even arppearing at Woodstock).The project showed much promise but both Cooper and Brecker decided to quit and the second album was fronted by vocalist David Clayton-Thomas, a Canadian singer, born in Surrey, England.Allthough the album was a massive hit, containing three gold US singles.

Since their beginnings in 1967, the band has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed 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".

Since late 2005, the band has been touring world wide with a refeshed line up and sometimes backs up former "Three Dog Night" singer Chuck Negron in his shows. The year 2007 witnessed the band's first world tour in a decade. From 2008 through 2010, Steve Katz even returned to appear at "BS&T's" shows as a special guest. 2011 saw "BS&T" and "Chicago" co-headlining a Jazz festival in Stuttgart Germany.

"Our blues is a crazy blues . A lot of us are nuts and music is our outlet"

(Al Cooper)

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