Blood, Sweat & Tears' Greatest Hits [Remastered] [Remaster]

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

Notes: This 1999 reissue contains two bonus tracks not included on the original release. Blood, Sweat & Tears includes: David Clayton-Thomas, Al Kooper, Steve Katz. Producers include: James William Guercio, John Simon, Don Heckman, Roy Halee, Bobby Colomby. Compilation producer: Al Quaglieri. Includes liner notes by David Wild. Digitally remastered by Chris Athens (Sony Music Studios, New York, New York). Liner Note Author: David Wild. Recording information: 12/1967-??/1972. Photographer: Don Hunstein. An expanded, remastered version of the group's original 1972 compilation. With two extra songs and all the familiar hits restored to their original album version lengths (as opposed to the radio-edit single versions), pound for pound, this is probably the best single-disc Blood Sweat & Tears hits package available. GREATEST HITS includes representative tracks from every phase of the band's career. Two tracks--the James Brown inspired "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know," and the addictive "I Can't Quit Her," are from the group's original Al Kooper-led incarnation, while two overlooked songs--"So Long Dixie" and "More and More"--are from NEW BLOOD, their 1972 album without better-known leader David Clayton-Thomas. This disc is no substitute for the Mastersounds version of the Child Is Father to the Man album, or the Mobile Fidelity version of Blood, Sweat and Tears, but it is a really smart idea. Columbia-Legacy went back and recompiled this multi-million selling album (previously available as a fairly lackluster 40-minute, 11-song CD), adding two songs ("So Long Dixie" and "More and More,") that were previously available only on singles from 1972 and 1968, respectively, and upgrading the sound. What distinguishes Blood, Sweat & Tears' Greatest Hits from the double-CD Sony-Legacy compilation What Goes Up: The Best of Blood, Sweat & Tears, however, is that this disc uses the single edits of the hits. To serious fans, it's sort of Blood, Sweat & Tears-lite, but to millions of listeners, it's these shorter versions, shorn of their extended album-version breaks, by which they know the band best. And those numbers now sport state-of-the-art sound -- hard, up-front bass and drums, horns that pour out of the speakers, and close and intimate singing from David Clayton-Thomas (or, on the two BS&T Mark 1 tracks here, Al Kooper and Steve Katz). The new release also re-creates the packaging of the original LP, with reviewers' quotes across the band's prime years (1968-72) and a time line history, as well as release and production information on each song. The two additional numbers bring the running time up to 48 minutes, and it's mid-priced, too, which makes it even easier to junk the old version and get hold of this one. ~ Bruce Eder

Uncut (2/01, p.79) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Bold, brassy and brilliantly scored..."

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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