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Sonder with Clayton-Thomas
Clayton-Thomas's first release with the band sold 10 million
copies and became a blockbuster hit, it was the number one
LP for seven straight weeks. It remained on the charts for
more than two years. The album featured big band jazz-rock
arrangements of old and new songs by such artists as Brenda
Holloway, Billie Holiday, Laura Nyro, and Steve Winwood. The
album launched three gold singles, "You've Made Me So
Very Happy," "And When I Die" and "Spinning
Wheel". He wrote the hit "Spinning Wheel".
The album garnered five Grammy awards, including Album of
the Year and Best Performance by a Male Vocalist. Blood, Sweat
and Tears 3, appearing a year later, was nearly as successful,
introducing the hit singles "Hi-De-Ho" and "Lucretia
MacEvil."
 He
was born David Henry Thomsett in an air-raid shelter in London,
England, September 13, 1941. It was the height of the Blitzkreig
and the bombs fell nightly on London. His mother Freda was
an English war-bride with a musical theater background; his
father Fred, a Canadian soldier, was away fighting in Italy.
In 1944, Freda and young David emigrated to Canada, Fred
joined them a year later.
From the beginning there was trouble... David never accepted
this stranger who had seen so much war and brutality, and
Fred, twice wounded, highly decorated, resented the sullen,
withdrawn son he barely knew. Things got worse as David grew
older. Their confrontations grew increasingly violent. Finally,
barely fourteen, David left home for good. He soon got into
trouble with the law.
In the spring of 1962, David walked out of Millbrook Reformatory
with twenty dollars and a battered old guitar, and he never
looked back. He was twenty-one and had been in and out of
such institutions since age fifteen. As a homeless young runaway,
he had been jailed a half-dozen times for vagrancy, parole
violations, petty theft. While other teenagers in suburban
Toronto were attending high school proms, David was a street
kid, a loner, sleeping in parked cars, stealing food and clothing,
learning how to survive and fight behind bars. He might have
been trapped in the endless cycle of recidivism but for that
old guitar. It had been left behind by an outgoing inmate,
and David claimed it. He began to learn to play, practicing
alone, late into the night, and for the first time in his
life he had a dream, a plan for the future.
He left Millbrook tough and determined, vowing never to return.
He came to Toronto, to Yonge Street, a rough, brawling strip
filled with sex shops and bars, hookers and hustlers of every
kind. Rhythm and Blues was the music of choice on "the
strip". It migrated up from Chicago and Detroit and was
adopted by the musicians of Toronto.
 The king of "the strip" was Ronnie Hawkins. The
Arkansas-born rocker and his band "The Hawks" ruled
Yonge Street. David would hang around the clubs just for a
chance to sit in with "The Hawks" or to sing the
Blues with Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm. Soon he was leading
bands of his own, "The Shays" and "The Bossmen".
To put some distance between this new life and his past, he
changed his name to David Clayton-Thomas and soon began to
attract attention in the fledgling Canadian music industry.
His first venture into the recording studio produced "Boom
Boom," a John Lee Hooker blues which rose to number one
locally. He then wrote "Walk that Walk" and "Brainwashed".
Both rocketed to number one nationally. A top-selling album,
numerous TV appearances, and hundreds of club and concert
dates followed, and David Clayton-Thomas was known across
Canada. Paul Anka, Canada's biggest international star, invited
David to New York to guest NBC's "Hullabaloo". After
this nationally televised appearance, David returned to Toronto.
But New York had changed him forever. He took his band out
of the lucrative bars on "the strip" and into the
coffee houses of Yorkville, hangout for the artists, writers,
and musicians of the Bohemian set. The money was lean, but
here David could play alongside the great bluesmen he worshipped:
John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Sam Hopkins, Son House, Muddy Waters,
Willie Dixon, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. His band soon
drifted away. There was simply not enough money in Yorkville
to support them. But David hung in, doggedly playing for whoever
would listen, learning the music from the masters. John Lee
Hooker took the young singer-guitarist into his band, and
when he came to New York to play a Greenwich Village club,
David came with him. When that gig ran out, Hooker left for
Europe and David stayed on in the Village.
It was 1967, and the Village was a hotbed of creative activity.
David roomed with other hungry young musicians, playing for
pizza money, hanging out in all-night cafes, arguing music,
politics and philosophy with the young activist firebrands
of the era, sharing gigs with Richie Havens, James Taylor
and Jimi Hendrix, playing "basket houses," (play
a few songs then pass the basket). Scuffling to survive was
nothing new to David.
Word got around about the white blues singer from Canada
who sang and played with such conviction. Genuine stars began
to show up wherever he played. One night folk singer Judy
Collins dropped in and was deeply moved by the intensity of
the young man's music. She told her friend Bobby Colomby about
the experience, and the next night they returned together.
(Bobby was trying to hold together his faltering band "Blood,
Sweat and Tears". Even though the band's first album,
"Child Is Father To The Man," had been released,
the band was already torn by infighting over direction and
leadership. Singer Al Kooper and several founding members
had already left.) BS&T's drummer was stunned by what
he heard that night, He immediately asked the young Canadian
blues singer to help reorganize his failing band, and an American
musical institution was born.
BS&T's first album with David sold an amazing ten million
copies and launched three gold singles, "You've Made
Me So Very Happy", "And When I Die" and "Spinning
Wheel". The album won an unprecedented five Grammy awards,
including album of the year and best performance by a male
vocalist. David's rendition of Billie Holiday's "God
Bless The Child" became a classic. Five successive gold
albums and three more gold singles, "Hi De Ho,"
"Lucretia MacEvil" and "Go Down Gamblin'"
followed, and by 1972 BS&T was at the very top of the
music industry.
Blood, Sweat and Tears, daring and innovative, a fiery fusion
of jazz and rock, blues and the classics . . . This superb
band defied all boundaries, performing with consummate artistry
in front of a symphony one night, thousands of rock fans the
next. BS&T played the Metropolitan Opera, the Fillmores,
the Newport Jazz Festival, and Caesar's Palace--all in the
same year. It was the first contemporary band to break through
the iron curtain with the historic 1970 tour of Eastern Europe,
and of course headlined at Woodstock, Madison Square Garden,
Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl . . . Blood, Sweat and
Tears was the hottest concert ticket in America.
From the beginning, BS&T was a strange hybrid. The Julliard
graduates, with their classical training, felt the band should
aspire to loftier musical goals, and Bartok and Satie became
a part of the repertoire. The Berklee grads were jazz purists,
and long improvised solos became a part of the show. Others
were pure rockers whose experience included "The Blues
Project" and Frank Zappa's "Mother's of Invention".
Then there was David Clayton-Thomas. He prowled the edge
of the stage, that big blues-drenched voice, totally unique,
filled with raw naked emotion that no audience could resist.
He drove the band relentlessly. Without him it was academic
perfection. With him it came alive.
Yet in spite of the success and accolades, the old tensions
and rivalries still existed in the band. Here lies the magic
- - and the eventual downfall - - of the early band. The Julliard
types, embarrassed by the hype of pop stardom, tried to steer
the band in a more classical direction, disdainful of both
jazz and rock. The Berklee boys resented the structure of
the classics and the simplicity of rock and pushed towards
a more complex improvisational style.
David was the center of this musical tug-of-war. He possessed
neither classical training nor a jazz background. But he was
undoubtedly the star of the show, attracting most of the media
attention and composing most of their hit songs. By the mid-70's,
BS&T was submerged in a wave of its own creation. Every
record company had its horn bands: Chicago, Earth Wind And
Fire, Tower of Power... Even the Rolling Stones carried a
horn section. The founding members of BS&T began to drift
away to pursue their own musical ambitions. The classical
musicians went on to film scoring and teaching fellowships.
The jazz players left to play pure jazz. One by one they were
replaced with an illustrious lineup of renowned musicians:
Joe Henderson, Jaco Pastorius, Mike Stern, Larry Willis, Don
Alias, Gregory Herbert. In concert, the band was a musical
powerhouse, but inwardly it was in turmoil. The unique creative
team was gone, so the band took to the road, playing 300 concerts
a year through the 70's. David left the band twice, exhausted
by the brutal tour schedule and frustrated by the lack of
creative time. In 1976, even Bobby Colomby, the sole remaining
founding member, left to become a music executive, and David
was the only one left from the glory years.
In 1983, David teamed up with hard-driving young manager,
Larry Dorr, formerly a tour manager with the band. Larry convinced
David that there was still life in the once-proud name Blood,
Sweat & Tears, and that with the right musicians, good
management, and strong leadership, it could once again be
an attraction on concert stages around the world. They recruited
musical director/trumpeter Steve Guttman, graduate of Oberlin
Conservatory of Music, former musical director for the 70's
recording stars Gloria Gaynor and Evelyn "Champagne"
King, and alumnus of the Tito Puente and Machito big bands,
and he assembled an exciting lineup of top New York musicians.
With Steve conducting, Blood, Sweat & Tears began performing
with prestigious American symphonies like the Detroit, the
Houston, and the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestras.
Larry Dorr was right. A revitalized BS&T under his direction
and David's leadership came storming back to the concert stages
of the world, playing international jazz festivals, symphonies,
concert halls and casino show rooms. David never sounded better.
The personnel of the band stabilized, and BS&T once again
delivered the same exciting diverse sound that made it such
a well-loved part of America's musical heritage.
David Clayton-Thomas has returned to the studio and has completed
his first solo album in a decade. Recorded live at Ornette
Coleman's Harlem studio, David produced "Blue Plate Special"
himself. A blazing collection of new original songs and classic
blues tunes, it is music straight from the heart. This is
David Clayton-Thomas as he should be --direct and honest.
The production is "right in your face", with David's
powerful vocals front and center.
In 1996, David was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall
of Fame, where he takes his place alongside his country's
musical giants... Oscar Peterson, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young...
Artists of legendary stature around the world. Sitting proudly
in black tie at the head table, was Fred Thomsett. David and
his Father have long since reconciled their differences. Freda
passed away in 1990, but she lived to see her son at the top
of his profession.
From a prison cell to his nation's Hall of Fame... it's been
one hell of a journey!
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