BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS: NEW CITY (1975)
1) Ride Captain Ride; 2) Life;
3) No Show; 4) I Was A Witness To War; 5) One Room Country Shack; 6) Applause;
7) Yesterdays Music; 8) Naked Man; 9) Got To Get You Into My Life; 10) Takin'
It Home.
The attempt to re-model BS&T as a funky
dance-pop band having miserably failed, both critically and commercially, it
was officially decided that the group had lost its way, and needed to retrace
its steps back to the point at which they seemed more generally accepted. To
that end, Jerry Fisher amicably left the band, taking most of the Mirror Image-era extras (like Jerry
LaCroix, etc.) with him — and David Clayton-Thomas was welcomed back into the
fold.
The result is an album that is at least «on the
level» with the band's output circa 1970-71: the kind of sound they had back
there had not yet become «dated» circa 1975, and the restructuring probably
injected a few extra drops of adrenaline into the outfit — and although I have
never been a big fan of Clayton-Thomas, I have to admit that, next to the
absolute non-remarkability of Fisher, he sounds like The Supreme God Of Vocal
Expression by comparison, so that alone is a big step up from the passable, but
colorless years of Fisher rule.
To herald the «comeback», BS&T tried out a
move that, in retrospect, seems so utterly obvious that it only makes one
wonder how they managed to hold out on it for so long — then again, perhaps
they were saving it up for the rainiest day in their history, and it was getting pretty cloudy in 1975. I am
talking, of course, of the release of the Beatles' ʽGot To Get You Into My
Lifeʼ as the lead single from the album — that particular song that is
referenced, in so many textbooks, as the
song that gave life to the «jazz-pop» brand of BS&T and Chicago, much like
ʽI Am The Walrusʼ gave life to the «strings-pop» brand of the Electric Light
Orchestra.
Curiously, the band's version is actually much
more guitar-heavy than the original — it is almost as if they were returning
the Beatles a favor, with the «original brass band» paying homage to the
«original guitar band» by reinterpreting the original guitar band's brass-led
number as the original brass band's guitar-led number. That said, unlike the
Beatles, BS&T forgot to shape their guitar parts into any memorable riffs —
the result is a slippery, mushy style of production that preserves the vocal
melody but cheapens the song instrumentally. Despite that, the single still
managed to chart: a Beatles song is a Beatles song, after all, it's fairly hard
to spoil it to the ground.
But there are plenty of more adequate covers on
New City as well. ʽRide Captain
Rideʼ, the only hit by the little-known band Blues Image, originally recorded
in 1970, is here given the proper BS&T treatment, including a lengthy cool-jazz
keyboard solo, and Clayton-Thomas gives an inspired performance — the original
had a more exquisite guitar part (courtesy of Mike Pinera, who would later play
with Iron Butterfly and Alice Cooper), but, overall, a thinner, less overtly
kick-ass sound (and it also features here one of Ron McClure's toughest
basslines, good enough to rival some of Fielder's), so count me happy.
The band also sounds revitalized on such
party-oriented stuff as Allen Toussaint's ʽLifeʼ (similar in style to David
Bowie's ʽFameʼ — coincidence? technically, yes, since Young Americans was released only a month prior to New City, but in general, no, since
both songs reflected the same musical tendencies of the epoch); and Randy
Newman's circus number ʽNaked Manʼ, introduced with a little bit of popular Mozart,
but played out in «mock-silly» rather than «unintentionally-corny» style. And,
just for diversity's sake, Laura Nyro as the band's resident «semi-popular intellectual
singer-songwriter with musical pretense» is now replaced by Janis Ian, whose
ʽApplauseʼ is extended by an extra three minutes of jazz-fusion and
classical-fusion travels — nothing too
awesome, but at least they are trying something
out, and this is the kind of something that their reputation was built upon in
the first place.
Of the original numbers, Clayton-Thomas'
ʽYesterdays Musicʼ is a dang good soul-pop song, simple, but with a subtle
build-up and an elegant melodic wrap-up at the end of each verse. The ballad ʽI
Was A Witness To Warʼ is not as good — too much vocal pathos, too little in the
way of discernible melody — and McClure's instrumental ʽNo Showʼ is equally
mushy for the first half of its duration, before a nicely placed twist pushes
it over into upbeat rhythmic territory, where it becomes another passable, but
forgettable, fusion piece.
Still, I have nothing against awarding the
album an overall thumbs up. It is musically competent, mildly adventurous, gives
us back a singer that is above average (no matter what I might hold in general
against this particular type of singing), and, unlike its immediate
predecessors, does not try to blindly compete against prevailing fads and
trends, but rather just goes on to quietly pursue its own business. The very
fact alone that they were able to put that blundering train back upon a crude,
but functional railtrack deserves recognition.
Check "New City" (MP3) on Amazon
"BS&T forgot to shape their guitar parts into any memorable riffs"
ReplyDeleteThen what's next? BS&T doing a brass cover of You really got me? Might actually be cool, provided that the trumpets really are blurting out those five notes. In any case much more interesting than the cover done by Van Halen a few years later.
I'd pay money to hear a flat out, no holds barred, full brass band rendition of "Smoke On The Water"! Imagine a huge horns vs. guitar vs. bizarre jazz fusion keyboard battle in the middle. Who else but BS&T would have had the balls to make the attempt?
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