From their beginnings as an attempt at bold jazz-rock fusion in 1967 through a run as a high-powered R&B/soul-rock singles act with singer
David Clayton-Thomas
two years later,
Blood, Sweat & Tears
were always a kind of fascinating experiment, and a commercially successful one at that. The first album from the
Clayton-Thomas
-fronted band appeared in 1969, spawned four high chart hits, won a Grammy as Album of the Year, and went on to sell some three million units. The next two albums,
Blood, Sweat & Tears 3
and
4
, generated a few more hits, but the band was gradually running out of creative steam by this point, and when
left the group after the fourth album, well, that was the end of the line commercially for
. A jazzier, but definitely not as commercial, version of
showed up for two of the albums collected in this set, 1972's
New Blood
and 1973's
No Sweat
, with the third album here, 1976's
More Than Ever
, featuring the return of
to the fold. ~ Steve Leggett