BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS: NEW BLOOD (1972)
1) Down In The Flood; 2) Touch
Me; 3) Alone; 4) Velvet; 5) I Can't Move No Mountains; 6) Over The Hill; 7) So
Long Dixie; 8) Snow Queen; 9) Maiden Voyage.
And lots
of it, too. By 1972, the band had lost not just Clayton-Thomas, who thought his
position solid enough to try and go for a solo career, but also two more of its
founding fathers — Lipsius and Halligan, whose arranging and songwriting
talents had been one of the band's assets. In their place, the remaining veterans
hired Jerry Fisher, a big fan of the jazz-rock sound who'd been hanging around
Dallas for a couple of years, playing BS&T and Chicago covers; Lou Marini
on woodwinds; and Larry Willis on piano. In addition, Georg Wadenius was added
to the lineup on extra lead guitar — maybe because the band just couldn't stand
the prospect of not having a band
member whose family name ended in "-ius"
among them.
However, strangely enough, the basic essentials
of the BS&T sound remain the same even with all the «new blood» pumped in
those not-too-attractive veins. The new vocal guy sounds somewhat like a
deflated version of Clayton-Thomas — a barroom screamer who'd like to have the same amount of brawn,
but is incapable of conquering his gene machine. That is a change, but not a
very significant one. In all other matters, this is still the same old brand of
roots music with horns — a little jazz, a little blues, a little pop, and a lot
of blowing.
One change for the worse is that, with the
departure of Clayton-Thomas and Halligan, the band is once again deprived of
the songwriting initiative. Trombonist Dave Bargeron tries his hand in the
business, but his ʽOver The Hillʼ ends up being a fairly standard pub-rock cut,
very much influenced by Joe Cocker's ʽDelta Ladyʼ — the grizzly wah-wah riff
that drives the song is a nifty invention, but everything else about the song
is way below par. New band member Lou Marini also jumps in with a slice of
soulful funk (ʽAloneʼ) that only shows signs of life during the instrumental
jam section — in other respects, it's just your Vegas show most of the way.
Elsewhere, the impoverished band has no choice
but to fall back on covers, trying out everything from Bob Dylan to Carole King
to Herbie Hancock to Teddy Randazzo. Naturally, the choice could have been much
worse, and the decision to cover ʽMaiden Voyageʼ alone signified that the band
was not yet done with its «artsy» pledge — the mid-section with scat singing
over a nimble jazz guitar solo by Wadenius could hardly qualify as «commercial»
stuff in 1972. However, it is hard to sense any genuine inspiration in most of
these covers: on the whole, the band does not seem to understand very well why exactly they are making these
particular choices.
Thus, Dylan's ʽDown In The Floodʼ is
unexplainably set to a slowed-down variant of the bassline from Cream's
ʽCrossroadsʼ and transformed into a less-than-subtle blues-rock rucus — not too
bad per se, but what's that got to do with Dylan? Randazzo's ʽTouch Meʼ is
arranged as a bona fide Elton John piano ballad — all fine, but we already have
an Elton John, and he sings better than Jerry Fisher. ʽSnow Queenʼ is a good
song, but, from this particular rendition, you'd never guess it had anything to
do with Carole King — and so on.
I suspect that the album would have worked much
better as a fully instrumental project: almost everywhere on here, the tracks
are easier to appreciate when the band just «gets it on» — nobody is able to
deprive Jim Fielder of his great bass skills, and all the trumpet and trombone
solos and duels are completely on the level with many jazz greats of the era.
The cover of ʽMaiden Voyageʼ, which is
completely instrumental, is unquestionably the highlight here for that very
reason. But every time these guys drift off in a pure «entertainment» direction
— and this happens way too often for comfort — they run out of purposes faster
than you can pull that mouthpiece away from your lips. Nothing on here sucks
bad enough to warrant a negative assessment, but RateYourMusic currently
evaluates the record as «#868 for 1972», and I'd say that's a fairly rational
place for it — be sure to check out those other 867 albums first.
Check "New Blood" (MP3) on Amazon
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