Blood, Sweat & Tears – Child Is Father to the Man (1968)

I know there’s somethin’ goin on

But I don’t know what it is . . .

I better get to the bottom of this!

Let’s get something straight: Child Is Father to the Man was the first album that Blood, Sweat & Tears released.  

But because I only became aware of it after buying the group’s second album, I thought it was BS&T’s second album . . . and vicey-versey.

I assumed the second Blood, Sweat & Tears album – which was titled Blood, Sweat & Tears – was the group’s first album because most eponymous albums are debut albums.  In fact, Blood, Sweat & Tears is the only eponymous second album I can think of.

BS&T’s third album is titled Blood, Sweat & Tears 3.  That confused me even further because there was no Blood, Sweat & Tears 2.

By contrast, Led Zeppelin titled their first three albums – which were roughly contemporaneous with BS&T’s – Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, and Led Zeppelin III. 

Kudos to Led Zeppelin for keeping things simple!

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Blood, Sweat & Tears was the brainchild of the multifaceted musical genius Al Kooper.

Kooper co-wrote “This Diamond Ring,” which was a #1 hit single for Gary Lewis and the Playboys in 1965, when he was only 21.  A few months later, he talked his way into playing the organ when Bob Dylan recorded “Like a Rolling Stone.”  (Kooper also played on records by the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Alice Cooper, and many others.)

Kooper handled keyboards for the Blues Project, was responsible for the legendary Super Session album (which featured legendary guitarist Mike Bloomfield on one side and Stephen Stills on the other side), discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd (producing and performing on that group’s first three albums), and produced the truly fabulous debut album of the Tubes (which included the iconic “White Punks on Dope”). 

But I think Al Kooper’s greatest single musical achievement was Child Is Father to the Man.

Here’s what William Ruhlman of AllMusic had to say about that album:

Al Kooper’s finest work, an album on which he moves the folk-blues-rock amalgamation of the Blues Project into even wider pastures, taking in classical and jazz elements (including strings and horns), all without losing the pop essence that makes the hybrid work.  This is one of the great albums of the eclectic post-Sgt. Pepper era of the late ’60s, a time when you could borrow styles from Greenwich Village contemporary folk to San Francisco acid rock and mix them into what seemed to have the potential to become a new American musical form. . . .

This is the sound of a group of virtuosos enjoying itself in the newly open possibilities of pop music.  Maybe it couldn't have lasted; anyway, it didn't.

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It didn’t last because the band decided they needed a stronger lead singer than Kooper.  So they fired him two months after Child Is Father to the Man was released.

Et tu, BS&T?

What Al Kooper could
have said to his bandmates

The group considered Alex Chilton, Stephen Stills, and Laura Nyro for the job, but eventually went with David Clayton-Thomas.

Columbia Records president Clive Davis thought he was the perfect match for BS&T.  Here’s what he wrote after hearing Clayton-Thomas perform with them:

He was staggering . . . a powerfully built singer who exuded an enormous earthy confidence.  He jumped right out at you. . . . He seemed so genuine, so in command of the lyric . . . a perfect combination of fire and emotion to go with the band’s somewhat cerebral appeal.  I knew he would be a strong, strong figure.

But Clayton-Thomas’s singing style wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.  Here’s what critic Robert Christgau had to say about him: 

Just figured out how David Clayton-Thomas learned vocal projection: by belching.  That’s why when he gets really excited, he sounds as if he’’ about to throw up.  But it’s only part of the reason he gets me so excited [that] I feel like I’m about to throw up. 

The decision certainly paid off in terms of record sales – the first BS&T album featuring Clayton-Thomas went to #1 on the album charts.  So did the group’s next album.

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What would have become of Blood, Sweat & Tears if Al Kooper had stayed around?

We’ll never know.  But what we do know is that Kooper deserves most of the credit for the fact that Child Is Father to the Man consists of impeccable and innovative arrangements of first-rate songs.  (Kooper wrote several of those songs and filled in the rest of the album with numbers written by top-notch songwriters like Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, and the husband-wife team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.)

 

Nothing really compares to Pet Sounds.  But Child Is Father to the Man sort of does.  Start at the beginning and play the album straight through to the end – there’s really nothing you need to skip over.  

Click here to listen to Child Is Father to the Man.

Click here to buy that album from Amazon.