Blood, Sweat & Tears (also known as “BS&T“) is an American jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967, noted for a combination of brass with rock instrumentation. BS&T has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a wide range of musical styles. Their sound has merged rock, pop and R&B/soul music with big band jazz.
The initial line up consisted of Al Kooper (keyboards, vocals), Bobby Columby (drums), Steve Katz (guitar, vocals), and Jim Fielder (bass). Fred Lipsius (alto sax, piano) joined the others a month later. A few more shows were played before Lipsius recruited horn players Dick Halligan, Randy Brecker, and Jerry Weiss. The octet debuted at the Cafe Au Go Go in November 1967, then played The Scene the following week. Audiences were impressed with the innovative fusion of contemporary styles. After signing to Columbia Records, the group released ‘Child is Father to the Man’ which reached number 47 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart in the United States.
The group’s self-titled second album spent seven weeks atop the U.S. charts in 1969 and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1970. It contained the hit recordings “And When I Die”, “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy”, and “Spinning Wheel”. All of these peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The band enjoyed headliner status at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969. The follow-up album, Blood, Seat & Tears 3, also reached number one in the U.S.
In addition to original music, the group is known for arrangements of popular songs by Laura Nyro, James Taylor, Carole King, The Band, The Rolling Stones, Billie Holiday and many others. The group has also adapted music from Erik Satie, Thelonious Monk and Sergei Prokofiev into their arrangements.
The group was inspired by the “brass-rock” of the Buckinghams and their producer, James William Guercio, as well as the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra. BS&T’s success paralleled that of similarly configured ensembles such as Chicago (another group produced by Guercio) and the Electric Flag, but by the mid-1970s the group’s popularity had declined.
