Blood, Sweat & Tears' impact on the charts was so significant it propelled the band ahead of a chasing pack that included the Beatles (Abbey Road), Johnny Cash (Johnny Cash at San Quentin) and Crosby, Stills & Nash (Crosby, Stills & Nash) in the quest for the 1970 Album Of The Year Grammy award. Three successive top-five singles had introduced jazz-rock to a mainstream audience by virtue of an important third element: pop music.
BS&T's self-titled follow-up to the more challenging debut Child Is Father To The Man (1968) wasn't universally praised. Rolling Stone considered the first album, the defining work of bandleader Al Kooper who had since quit the band, the superior release.
The magazine's reviewer accused the outfit of trying too hard in its quest to mix genres, and of being ''constitutionally incapable of leaving well enough alone''.
Ouch! A rough call, but it has teeth when you consider the hokey Oklahoma!-esque sections in Laura Nyro's And When I Die, which reached No 2 on the pop singles chart, or the smarmy nod to rock supergroup Cream in the sprawling 12-minute jazz piece Blues - Part II.
Elsewhere, an otherwise restrained reading of Billie Holliday's God Bless The Child is interrupted by a horrifyingly inappropriate Latin breakout section before order is restored.
All the more reason to praise the top-shelf musicianship that lifts this album above such blunders, and the standout effort from the band's new vocalist David Clayton-Thomas.
The razor-sharp horn section, prominent and sassy, is as central to the success of hit track Spinnin' Wheel as the seething machismo and power in Clayton-Thomas' gravel-edged pipes. Third hit You've Made Me So Very Happy proves the singer to be as sensitive as he is soulful, while an ecstatic, funky version of Traffic's Smiling Phases highlights drummer Bobby Colomby's dexterity and bassman Jim Fielder's jazz-based chops.
A 2000 reissue includes live versions of More And More and Smiling Phases.
