I didn’t know about it, but now that I’ve seen the film I’d call it essential.Īs the documentary explains, David Clayton-Thomas was from Canada, where he had grown up as a delinquent troublemaker. Yet the story of what happened to BS&T in 1970, as the band was coming off its second album (the one with all the hits) and preparing to launch its third (which was peppered with terrific songs like “Lucretia MacEvil” and their disarmingly soulful cover of “Fire and Rain”), remains a singular piece of rock history, even if hardly anyone knows about it. By the time their 1970 tour arrived, Blood, Sweat & Tears were the most popular rock band in America, with a number-one album and a trio of hit singles that remain iconic: “And When I Die,” “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” and the joyfully bombastic and lurchy ear worm that was “Spinning Wheel.” Yet as fronted by the intoxicating huskiness of lead singer David Clayton-Thomas, they had emerged from the embers of the counterculture to become one of the first true supergroups. The band that’s on tour, the mighty but fraught Blood, Sweat & Tears, was full of great musicians who most people didn’t know by name.
“What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?” is, in a way, that movie. We see the band members backstage, on planes, in their nightly lodgings, and onstage. It encompasses 11 shows in 26 days, with headlines and controversies and a film crew to capture it all. Imagine an on-the-road concert documentary shot in the anything-goes days of 1970 - a hurly-burly vérité jamboree like “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” or “Elvis on Tour.” It’s about the biggest rock band in the world.
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