Blood Sweat & Tears 1969

I grew up in a odd and very interesting musical household. My father had some great records, but did not play them very often. When he did, he would play them often and most of the stuff he had was Jazz and popular music. He had some Rock, but it was because my uncle told him he would like it. My uncle took him to serious shows too and these albums reflected the great bands that he went to. Examples would be Traffic, Ten Years After, Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears. My mother liked crap, I can say that because if you went through her collection you could see really bad music like Barbra Streisand, Melissa Manchester, Neil Diamond (the bad stuff) and many forgetful names.

As I grew older I saw my dad buy music that was on the radio. I saw him get Michael Jackson or Huey Lewis and Hall & Oates. These were okay and maybe fine for me at my age, but I wanted to hear the music that I would hear at my uncles house. The giant classic rock of The Who, Santana, Eric Clapton and so many others. My father and my uncle did agree that Jazz-Rock was the way to go. They both loved Chicago and Blood, Sweet and Tears.

I got into Blood, Sweat and Tears about the same time I got into Chicago. I remember listing to the records and hearing the heavy horns and and the great vocals. Chicago had more power because they had a better guitar player, but BS&T had a very good vocalist. It was tough to figure who I liked more at the time, but I know I loved Chicago because of so much music. They put out three albums that were both double LP's. Of the course of the time I remember listening to BS&T and thinking that they had more of a cult following. They had more hit singles at the time then Chicago. I am not sure what divided me toward one or the other, but it did.

Listening to BS&T made me think that it must have been great to see these bands live. BS&T had a wonderful group of alumni who played with them. People like Randy Brecker, Al Kooper, Lew Soloff (who plays with Carla Bley), Jim Fielder (who played with Tim Buckley), and some funny and famous others such as Jaco Pastorious and Mike Stern who were successful in the fusion period. Their spotty musical record more then likely did not get them the popularity they deserve, but the first two BS&T albums have some great stuff on them.

So I would tell you guys to start your collection with BS&T self titled album. It's a welcome addition to a very good well rounded collection. There use of true Jazz ideas and some classical stuff such as Erik Satie is wonderful and great. They were more Jazz then Rock, but that's okay it shows they were the smarter of all those bands out there. The music is great, fresh and wonderful. Enjoy!