BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS

The Franchise

When Blood, Sweat and Tears released their first album, Child is Father to the Man, I was hooked. They are partially responsible for my love of horn rock, which I detailed in my book, A Brief History of Jazz Rock. Al Kooper was the genius behind B,S&T, the same guy who discovered and produced Lynyrd Skynyrd. When those horns kick in on “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know,” it was as if the clouds had parted permitting a glimpse of paradise. I’ve been hooked on horn rock ever since. I was lucky enough to see Dreams and Chase in concert. Chase, a rock band with four lead trumpets, was the loudest band I’ve ever seen. Dreams was the best. They had Randy Brecker and his brother Michael on horns, and Billy Cobham on drums.

I regretted that I had not seen B,S&T in concert, but last night, thanks to my wife Ann, I rectified that mistake. They played Fort Collins. They played the Gardens on Spring Creek, an outdoor venue. The weather was perfect. We joined a long line of geriatrics waiting to get in. The band was very good, thoroughly professional, without a single surviving member. It’s a Legacy Band.

Years ago, I read Al Kooper’s book, Backstage Passes, and Backstabbing Bastards. I wish I still had it. Al is not the retiring sort. When I interviewed him for my book, he was still bitter about being kicked out of his own band. Perhaps the best history of the band is guitarist Steve Katz’ Blood, Sweat and My Rock and Roll Years. The day of their first gig, Katz and drummer Bobby Colomby walked to the Village Theater to see their name on the marquee:

AL KOOPER’S BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS

“After the initial shock wore off, I ran upstairs and into the theater’s offices, completely livid, shouting ‘That marquee needs to be changed, and changed now! Blood, Sweat and Tears is a democracy! We’re not Al Kooper’s anything!’”

“Al never liked my guitar playing and I never liked his voice…Al Kooper had a myriad of talents, as keyboard player, songwriter, and guitarist, but he was not a singer. No matter how hard he’d try,—and God knows, Al tried—Mother Nature had not given him a good voice.”

Kooper says, "The reason I was asked to leave the band was repertoire & arrangement differences. As it turned out, it was for the best because I violently disagreed with choices like 'Spinning Wheel,' 'Lucretia MacEvil' and their arrangement of 'God Bless The Child,' to name but three. However they were tremendously successful and award-winning with these choices. In hindsight, I'd say Chicago was the better more tasteful and original band and the only BS&T album in Rolling Stones Top 500 is the one I was on. I don't think they are in The R&R Hall of Fame, but neither am I and they certainly didn't play much rock n roll. The band Chase was good too.

"I think BS&T Chapter 2 alienated the original followers and gained the 'top-tenners' who were never really quality mavens. Chicago eventually went top ten but not as unabashedly as BS&T. When the soul went out of the genre, no one wanted to ever revive what it became. I still play jazz rock tunes and my fans love it because I never betrayed them. Nina Simone told me once that BS&T's version of "God Bless The Child" was 'sacrilege.'"

I have listened to that record countless times. While it’s true Kooper did not have the strongest voice in the world, he had good instincts and could carry a tune. The band made its displeasure known. There were fights over what direction the band should take. Katz: “He’s stated that he left the band when we all turned against him. The fact is, we didn’t want him to leave the band; we just wanted another singer—a good one. BS&T finally did get a great singer after Kooper left. But it turned into a very dark case of ‘Be careful what you wish for…’”

The band hated David Clayton-Thomas even more. The band went through convulsive changes from album to album, but at its core was the use of horns as an integral part of their sound. B,S&T formed in 1967. Chicago also formed in 1967, but didn’t release their first album, Chicago Transit Authority, until 1968. Chicago went much further incorporating horns into the sound of the band and their first two albums are masterpieces, followed by forty years in the wilderness pumping out ballads, with the occasional bright spot like “Saturday in the Park.” In 1972 B,S&T released their fifth album, New Blood, with Jerry Fisher as lead singer. Bobby Colomby, Steve Katz, and Lew Soloff remained from the prior edition. New Blood contains some of their best work, particularly the one-two punch of Carole King’s “Snow Queen” and Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage.”

Interestingly, several years ago I saw Herbie Hancock at the Gardens with a young band. His music has become so personalized and cerebral I couldn’t find the melody. But I still love him.

Back to last night. They announced the personnel but I can’t find them online. Everyone was very good. They opened with “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know,” the young lead singer hitting all the notes. Was he better than Kooper? Worse? It was a professional performance. He was in key. They played “Smiling Phases,” “And When I Die,” and “God Bless the Child.” The audience loved it. The whole audience, including me, was on Prostagenix and Prevagen. It was a franchise operation.

Compare them to Tower of Power, which formed in Oakland in 1968 and still include some of the original members, most notably creator and alto sax player Emilio Castillo and baritone sax player Doc Kupka, and play every gig as if it were their last. I saw them twice in the nineties. Both times they were forty-five minutes late and the sound was perfect. I see their recent live performances on Youtube. There’s about a week’s worth of live Tower of Power. They are no franchise operation. They’re the real deal.