Blood, Sweat & Tears

After 40 years and well over 100 different members, Blood, Sweat & Tears are still merging big band jazz traditions with rock and pop grooves and contemporary classical influences. Originally led by Al Kooper (legendary producer and the man who played the opening to Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone), the band formed in New York City in 1967, taking inspiration from horn playing, Canadian bandleader Maynard Ferguson and the psychedelic, electric rock bands of the era. Debut album Child Is Father To The Man (1968) proved a critical success with its fusion of experimental sounds and styles and was regarded as groundbreaking, but Kooper left soon afterwards to be replaced by David Clayton-Thomas. Defined as "brass-rock", their classic follow-up Blood, Sweat & Tears (1968) became the band's finest moment, selling over 4 million copies, reaching Number 1 in the US and beating The Beatles' Abbey Road to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Singles Spinning Wheel, You've Made Me So Very Happy and And When I Die became big hits and they played at the famous Woodstock festival. But the band caused controversy when they toured Eastern Europe on behalf of the US Government and lost a lot of fans. Texas R&B singer Jerry Fisher took over the group in the early 1970s, before Clayton-Thomas returned later in the decade and oversaw the band until 2004. In 2023, the band was the subject of the documentary What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?, which was accompanied by two soundtrack albums—one recorded in the studio and the other live. Its iconic lead singer, David Clayton-Thomas, died on June 24, 2026, at the age of 84.