What Goes Up: The Best of Blood, Sweat & Tears

Performer: Blood, Sweat & Tears
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Personnel: Steve Katz (vocals, guitar); Al Kooper (vocals, keyboards); David Clayton-Thomas, Jerry Fisher, Jerry LaCroix (vocals); Georg Wadenius, Mike Stern (guitar); Lou Marini, Jr., Bill Tillman (flute, saxophone); Dick Halligan (flute, trombone, keyboards); Fred Lipsius (saxophone, piano); Randy Brecker, Jerry Weiss, Lew Soloff, Chuck Winfield, Tom Malone, Tony Klatka, Joe Giorgianni (trumpet, flugelhorn); Forrest Buchtell (trumpet); Dave Bargeron (trombone, tuba); Jerry Hyman (trombone); Larry Willis (keyboards); Jim Fielder, Ron McClure, Danny Trifan (bass); Bobby Colomby (drums, percussion); Don Alias (percussion). Producers: John Simon, James William Guercio, Bobby Colomby, Roy Halee, Bobby Colomby. Compilation producer: Bob Irwin. Recorded between 1967 and 1975. Includes liner notes by Al Quaglieri. Few bands have changed direction as emphatically and successfully as Blood, Sweat & Tears. From their 1968 debut, CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN, the band were pioneers in the realm of jazz-rock fusion. Leader Al Kooper took the progressive ideas of his former group, the Blues Project, and refined and extended them into a dazzling mix of pop hooks, rock muscle and jazzy complexity. The four tracks from that era are clearly the best of this two-disc anthology, particularly the powerful, soulful "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know." After Kooper lost interest following the band's debut, Blood, Sweat & Tears reorganized around new singer David Clayton-Thomas and radically simplified their approach, becoming the missing horn-rock link between the Buckinghams and Chicago. Though far removed from Kooper's original vision, this music is undeniably catchy and often dazzling.

As initially conceived by Al Kooper, Blood, Sweat & Tears was the first and best of the jazz-rock horn bands. Though Kooper departed after the debut album, new singer David Clayton-Thomas led the band to huge commercial success with a more pop-oriented approach. BST--in both its Kooper and Clayton-Thomas incarnations--epitomized post-'60s eclecticism, crafting Top 40 hits out of musical influences as disparate as Billie Holiday, Tim Buckley, and Erik Satie.

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