“Drop all your troubles by the riverside” and join Blood, Sweat & Tears live in concert as they bring their iconic jazz-rock sound to the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ this Friday, December 9, 2016 at 8pm!
At this exciting New Jersey musical event, audiences of all ages will have an opportunity to enjoy the latest incarnation of a group that’s remained popular now for nearly a half-century.
It’s been 49 years since drummer/music producer Bobby Colomby and several of his musical friends started one of the first groups to successfully blend rock and jazz — Blood, Sweat & Tears.
So successful did this band turn out to be that their self-titled sophomore LP, Blood, Sweat & Tears, topped the Billboard charts and beat out The Beatles’ Abbey Road for the prestigious Grammy Award for Album of the Year!
And since then, Colomby has gone on to guide Blood, Sweat & Tears into a contemporary musical voice, one that reaches out beyond a single nostalgic audience.
“I no longer want to target just one generation,” affirms Colomby. “That would be a mistake. With this updated version, I want this band to gain recognition with a wider audience. I want people of all ages to experience what the music has to offer.”
The idea for Blood, Sweat and Tears was originally conceived in 1967 by keyboardist Al Kooper. Kooper had been toying with the notion of forming an electric rock band that would include horns and use jazz as the basis for their work just as groups like The Buckinghams and the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra had recently begun to do.
In New York City, Kooper found three musicians interested in working with him on this musical experiment — drummer Bobby Colomby, bassist Jim Fielder, and guitarist Steve Katz, in addition to a top-flight horn section including jazz trumpeter Randy Brecker.
The new group signed to Columbia Records, and the name “Blood, Sweat & Tears” came to Kooper after a performance at NYC’s Cafe au Go Go, where a cut on his hand left his organ keyboard covered in blood.
BS&T released their debut LP, Child is Father to the Man, in 1968, an album which is now considered one of Rolling Stone Magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”
One thing that recording didn’t have back in 1968, however, was a hit single to get AM radio play and help drive sales. For this reason and more, Kooper and Brecker left the band in 1968 and Colomby and Katz went to work on developing a new lineup of musicians for the group. For their lead singer, they chose dynamic Canadian vocalist David Clayton-Thomas.
With this new edition of Blood, Sweat & Tears featuring Clayton-Thomas, Colomby, and Katz, the group released its 1969 self-titled album, Blood, Sweat & Tears. The album’s first single,”You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” catapulted to number two on the Hot 100 chart and also lifted the album to the top of the Billboard Album chart.
More hits like “Spinning Wheel” and “And When I Die” followed, and the rest is history. Over the next half-century, Blood, Sweat & Tears went on to become one of the most popular touring acts of all time.
But does the group still contain any of its original members?
“Not a chance,” states Colomby, who last performed with BS&T in 1976.
“I think of this band like baseball’s Yankees. When you’re at a Yankee game you’re not going to see Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, or Lou Gehrig. What you do come to expect is a team of top-notch players upholding a tradition of winning. That’s the Yankee legacy. It is what people expect from BS&T as well… brilliant musicians, singers, songs, and arrangements.”
All told, it’s estimated there have been approximately 140 members of Blood, Sweat & Tears!
The current line-up includes musicians Dylan Elise on drums, Glen McClelland on keyboards, Ric Fierabracci on bass, Leonardo Amuedo on guitar, Brad Mason on trumpet, Dan Levine on trombone, Ken Gioffre on sax and flute, and Carl Fischer as musical director and lead trumpter.
In addition, on vocals, Blood, Sweat & Tears currently features a southern rock singer with a great stage presence whom audiences everywhere recognize from his appearances on TV’s American Idol — Bo Bice.
Explains Colomby, “During the early years of… American Idol, I received many phone calls from friends telling me to check out singer Bo Bice, saying that his was a fresh voice and that he did a masterful job singing ‘Spinning Wheel.’”
“Many of my more musically knowledgable buddies also suggested that I ask Bo to join the band. I’m pleased to say that’s exactly what happened and by the reaction of audiences world wide, it was a great match.”
If you’d like to personally experience Blood, Sweat & Tears featuring Bo Bice live at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ, this Friday, December 9, 2016 at 8pm, please contact www.statetheatrenj.org for tickets or call 732–246–7469 Mon. through Fri. between 10am and 6pm.
