Blood, Sweat & Tears frontman dies at 84
David Clayton-Thomas, the singer and songwriter who fronted the American band Blood, Sweat & Tears during their peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, has died aged 84. His gritty and soulful tenor voice, combined with the band's punchy four-piece horn section, helped define a fusion of jazz, blues, soul and balladry that propelled the group to international fame.
Clayton-Thomas joined Blood, Sweat & Tears after folk singer Judy Collins recommended him to drummer Bobby Colomby, a band co-founder. The band had just lost vocalist and keyboard player Al Kooper. Collins heard Clayton-Thomas sing at a New York gig and suggested him as a replacement, a move that proved pivotal.
Chart-topping success with Blood, Sweat & Tears
The band's debut album, Child Is Father to the Man, had reached the US Top 50, but it was the self-titled follow-up, Blood, Sweat & Tears (released in December 1968), with Clayton-Thomas on board, that catapulted them to stardom. The album topped the US chart and generated three hit singles, each reaching No. 2 in the US: You've Made Me So Very Happy, And When I Die and Spinning Wheel, the last written by Clayton-Thomas. The album won the Grammy for Album of the Year and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.
The band headlined the 1969 Woodstock festival and topped the US album charts again with Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 (1970), which produced the Top 20 hit Hi-De-Ho and the Top 30 single Lucretia Mac Evil.
Controversial Iron Curtain tour
In 1970, the band became the first American group to tour behind the Iron Curtain, visiting Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland under the auspices of the US State Department. Clayton-Thomas told Rolling Stone magazine: “We went over there with the idea of just how much so-called communist fascism is American propaganda, and I found that the propaganda is pretty damn close to the truth. It’s scary.”
The tour, seen as collusion with the Nixon administration, angered some fans. The 2023 documentary What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? revealed that Clayton-Thomas had a criminal record from his youth in Canada and faced deportation for overstaying his visa. He and the band agreed to the tour in exchange for his permanent US residency.
Departure and solo career
After the fourth album B, S & T; 4 (1971), which reached No. 10 on the album chart and included the minor hit Go Down Gamblin' (another Clayton-Thomas composition), he quit the band to pursue a solo career. Internal disputes over business issues and drug and alcohol abuse had strained relationships. He released three solo albums between 1972 and 1973 before rejoining the group in 1974. He released 14 more solo albums between 1977 and 2019, but none charted significantly. The band's later albums also saw limited success, with only New City (1975) reaching the US Top 50.
Early life and career
David Henry Thomsett was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, during World War II, to Fred Thomsett, a Canadian soldier, and Freda (née Smith), a music student. After the war, the family moved to Willowdale, Toronto. At 14, he left home due to abuse from his alcoholic father and lived rough. He was arrested multiple times for vagrancy and theft, and taught himself guitar on an instrument left by a former inmate while incarcerated.
He began performing in Toronto's Yonge Street clubs as Sonny Thomas, earning a reputation for raw blues singing. He sometimes performed with the Hawks, who later became Bob Dylan's backing group, the Band. Adopting the name Clayton-Thomas marked a break from his troubled past. He formed the R&B group the Shays (originally David Clayton-Thomas and the Fabulous Shays), who opened for the Rolling Stones at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1965. He later formed the Bossmen with jazz pianist Tony Collacott, scoring a Canadian hit with Brain Washed in 1966, an anti-Vietnam war song. He then formed the David Clayton-Thomas Combine before moving to New York at the invitation of bluesman John Lee Hooker, where he met Judy Collins.
Later life and legacy
In 2010, Clayton-Thomas published his autobiography, Blood, Sweat and Tears. He was a regular campaigner for Peacebuilders Canada, a non-profit focused on keeping young people out of the criminal justice system. Four marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by two daughters, Ashleigh and Christine.
