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Title: Blood, Sweat & Tears – Child Is Father To The Man (1968) [Audio Fidelity 2014]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Child Is Father to the Man is keyboard player/singer/arranger Al Kooper’s finest work, an album on which he moves the folk-blues-rock amalgamation of the Blues Project into even wider pastures, taking in classical and jazz elements (including strings and horns), all without losing the pop essence that makes the hybrid work. This is one of the great albums of the eclectic post-Sgt. Pepper era of the late ’60s, a time when you could borrow styles from Greenwich Village contemporary folk to San Francisco acid rock and mix them into what seemed to have the potential to become a new American musical form. It’s Kooper’s bluesy songs, such as “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know” and “I Can’t Quit Her,” and his singing that are the primary focus, but the album is an aural delight; listen to the way the bass guitar interacts with the horns on “My Days Are Numbered” or the charming arrangement and Steve Katz’s vocal on Tim Buckley’s “Morning Glory.” Then Kooper sings Harry Nilsson’s “Without Her” over a delicate, jazzy backing with flügelhorn/alto saxophone interplay by Randy Brecker and Fred Lipsius. This is the sound of a group of virtuosos enjoying itself in the newly open possibilities of pop music. Maybe it couldn’t have lasted; anyway, it didn’t.

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Title: Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 (1970) [MFSL 2003]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

After the huge success of their previous album, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 was highly anticipated and it rose quickly to the top of the US album chart. It also yielded two hit singles: a cover of Carole King’s “Hi-De-Ho”, and “Lucretia MacEvil”. However, the album relied heavily on cover material and it received lukewarm reviews…
Blood, Sweat & Tears had a hard act to follow in recording their third album. Nevertheless, BS&T constructed a convincing, if not quite as impressive, companion to their previous hit. David Clayton-Thomas remained an enthusiastic blues shouter, and the band still managed to put together lively arrangements, especially on the Top 40 hits “Hi-De-Ho” and “Lucretia Mac Evil.” Elsewhere, they re-created the previous album’s jazzing up of Laura Nyro (“He’s a Runner”) and Traffic (“40,000 Headmen”), although their pretentiousness, on the extended “Symphony/Sympathy for the Devil,” and their tendency to borrow other artists’ better-known material (James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”) rather than generating more of their own, were warning signs for the future. In the meantime, BS&T 3 was another chart-topping gold hit.

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Title: Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears (1968) [MFSL 2005]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Blood, Sweat & Tears is the second album by the band Blood, Sweat & Tears, released in 1968. It was a huge commercial success, rising to the top of the U.S. charts for seven weeks and yielding three successive Top 5 singles. It received a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1970 and has been certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA with sales of more than four million units in the U.S. The album was selected for the 2006 book “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”.
This was Blood, Sweat & Tears’ apex, and a testimony to the best of the jazz/rock movement. Created by the legendary Al Kooper, the band was one of the major movers in the late-1960s rock scene. Though Kooper had departed after the debut album, this follow-up is bold, brassy, and adventurous, and the arrival of David Clayton-Thomas gave the band a strong singer and focal point. Eclecticism abounds, as an interpretation of an Eric Satie composition is followed by a version of Traffic’s “Smiling Phases.” Hit singles galore were culled from this record–“Spinning Wheel,” “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” and “And When I Die,”–not to mention a superb rendition of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless The Child.”

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Title: Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears (1968) [Audio Fidelity 2015]
Genre: Rock
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

The difference between Blood, Sweat & Tears and the group’s preceding long-player, Child Is Father to the Man, is the difference between a monumental seller and a record that was “merely” a huge critical success. Arguably, the Blood, Sweat & Tears that made this self-titled second album — consisting of five of the eight original members and four newcomers, including singer David Clayton-Thomas — was really a different group from the one that made Child Is Father to the Man, which was done largely under the direction of singer/songwriter/keyboard player/arranger Al Kooper. They had certain similarities to the original: the musical mixture of classical, jazz, and rock elements was still apparent, and the interplay between the horns and the keyboards was still occurring, even if those instruments were being played by different people. Kooper was even still present as an arranger on two tracks, notably the initial hit “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy.” But the second BS&T, under the aegis of producer James William Guercio, was a less adventurous unit, and, as fronted by Clayton-Thomas, a far more commercial one. Not only did the album contain three songs that neared the top of the charts as singles — “Happy,” “Spinning Wheel,” and “And When I Die” — but the whole album, including an arrangement of “God Bless the Child” and the radical rewrite of Traffic’s “Smiling Phases,” was wonderfully accessible. It was a repertoire to build a career on, and Blood, Sweat & Tears did exactly that, although they never came close to equaling this album.

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Title: Blood, Sweat & Tears – Bloodlines (APO Remaster 2017) [4 SACD Box Set]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Hybrid Stereo 4-SACD Box Set! Mastering By Ryan smith at Sterling Sound from Original Analog Master Tapes! Includes Blood, Sweat & Tears’ first four studio albums! Child Is Father To The Man (5.1 Surround mix by Al Kooper) Blood, Sweat & Tears Self-Titled (4.0 Quadraphonic) Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 Blood, Sweat & Tears 4 4 Hybrid Stereo SACD box set plus booklet and features exclusive liner notes from David Clayton-Thomas plus archival photos from Sony Music Entertainment. “Horn bands” were scarce when in October 1968 their self-titled album launched Blood, Sweat & Tears into the music stratosphere, becoming the No. 1 album in the world. An unorthodox mixture of rock, jazz and classically trained musicians — ranging from hardcore blues artists such as David Clayton-Thomas, to conservatory master’s graduates like Dick Halligan and Berklee-educated jazz musicians like Fred Lipsius, together with the powerful Broadway lead trumpet of Lew Soloff — defined the sound of the band in its groundbreaking years, 1968 through 1972. “This was big city music, hard charging and fierce. When BS&T hit the stage, it was about as subtle as a punch in the solar plexus,” Clayton-Thomas remembers. Bloodlines, a Hybrid Stereo 4 disc box set produced by Analogue Productions, packs a heavyweight wallop that’s a knockout for audiophiles! The legendary band’s first four studio albums have been remastered by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound from the original analog master tapes. You get their self-titled second album with its three gold-selling Top 10 singles: “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” “Spinning Wheel,” and “And When I Die” as well as BS&T’s iconic album debut: Child Is Father To The Man, their third album Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 and lastly, the Top 10 chart smash Blood, Sweat & Tears 4.
The band’s Grammy-winning self-titled second album disc is multichannel (4.0 Quadraphonic) and Child Is The Father To The Man is also multichannel (5.1 Surround mix by Al Kooper). The transfers for the Hybrid Stereo SACD box set were authored by Gus Skinas at the Super Audio Center in Boulder, Colo. For a brief period at the end of the 1960s and the start of the ’70s, Blood, Sweat & Tears, which fused a rock ‘n’ roll rhythm section to a horn section, held out the promise of a jazz-rock fusion that could storm the pop charts. The band was organized in New York in 1967 out of the remnants of the Blues Project by keyboard player/singer Al Kooper and guitarist Steve Katz of that group, and saxophonist Fred Lipsius. The rhythm section consisted of bassist Jim Fielder and drummer Bobby Colomby, and the horn section was filled out by trumpeters Randy Brecker and Jerry Weiss and trombonist Dick Halligan. This eight-piece band signed to Columbia Records and recorded Blood, Sweat & Tears’ debut album, Child Is Father To The Man, which was released in February 1968. Cofounder Kooper then departed, and the group was reorganized. Singer David Clayton-Thomas was added, Halligan moved to the keyboards, and trumpeters Chuck Winfield and Lew Soloff replaced Brecker and Weiss, with Jerry Hyman being added on trombone. This nine-piece unit, working with producer James William Guercio, made Blood, Sweat & Tears’ self-titled second album, released in October 1968. Blood, Sweat & Tears was a runaway hit, spawning three gold-selling Top 10 singles, “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” “Spinning Wheel,” and “And When I Die,” selling 3 million copies and winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It was also Blood, Sweat & Tears’ highwater mark. Guercio left to work on a similar concept with Chicago Transit Authority, and Blood, Sweat & Tears increasingly became a backup group for Clayton-Thomas. Nevertheless, the third album, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 (1970), and the fourth, Blood, Sweat & Tears 4 (1971), were substantial hits. Kooper’s contributions to Child Is Father To The Man are numerous — he played the piano and various other keyboards, and also composed almost all the numbers and made the arrangements for the string ensemble. Bluesy pieces such as “I Love You More…” and “I Can’t Quit Her” and the vocals from Kooper are truly gems. Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 yielded two hit singles: a cover of Carole King’s “Hi-De-Ho,” and “Lucretia MacEvil.” Blood, Sweat & Tears 4 was a Top 10 gold-selling album featuring the hard rockin’ smash “Go Down Gamblin'” and the Top 40 classic “Lisa Listen to Me.” David Clayton Thomas’ voice was thrilling, the horns meshed with rock and roll, and Bobby Colomby’s power drumming, fusing with Steve Katz’s amazing guitar work, all made the B, S&T 4 album soar. Features: • 4-SACD Box Set plus booklet • Self-titled Album: 4.0 quadrophonic • Child Is Father To Man – 5.1 Surround mix by Al Kooper • Super Audio CD • SACD Stereo SACD Layer • This Hybrid SACD contains a ‘Red Book’ Stereo CD Layer which is playable on most conventional CD Players! • Mastering by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound from Original Analog Master Tapes • Exclusive liner notes from David Clayton-Thomas • Archival photos from Sony Music Entertainment

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Title: Blood, Sweat And Tears – Greatest Hits (1972) [Audio Fidelity 2016]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Sometimes, a greatest-hits set is timed perfectly to gather together a group’s most successful and familiar performances just at the point when that group has passed the point of their maximum exposure to the public, but before the public memory has had a chance to fade. That was the case when Columbia Records assembled this compilation for release in early 1972. At that point, Blood, Sweat & Tears had released four albums and scored six Top 40 hits, each of which is heard here. But lead singer David Clayton-Thomas had just quit the group, so that the unit that recorded songs like “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” was not working together anymore. And even when Clayton-Thomas returned, the band would continue to decline commercially. As such, BS&T’s Greatest Hits captures the band’s peak in 11 selections–seven singles chart entries, plus two album tracks from the celebrated debut album when Al Kooper helmed the group, and two more from the Grammy-winning multi-platinum second album. Using the short singles edits of songs like “And When I Die” emphasizes their radio-ready punch over the more extended suitelike arrangements on the albums, but this selection gains in focus what it lacks in ambition. For the millions who learned to love BS&T in 1969 when they were all over AM radio, this is the ideal selection of their most accessible material.

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