Lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears dies
NEW YORK (AP) — David Clayton-Thomas, the lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears, whose husky, high-strung tenor on “Spinning Wheel,” “And When I Die” and other hits helped make the so-called brass rock band among the most popular acts of the late 1960s, has died at age 84.
Spokesperson Eric Alper said that Clayton-Thomas died “peacefully” Wednesday at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Alper did not cite a specific cause.
Clayton-Thomas was a onetime street fighter and petty thief from Canada who briefly became a rock superstar, the front man of a nine-member group that sold millions of records and won two Grammys for “Blood, Sweat & Tears,” which beat out the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” for best album of 1969. Calling out amid a jazzy parade of horns, keyboards and percussion, Clayton-Thomas’ urgent shout was a signature voice of the era, preaching love on the Motown cover “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” a lasting legacy on Laura Nyro’s “And When I Die” and a cool head on his own “Spinning Wheel.” Meanwhile, Blood, Sweat & Tears helped inspire a wave of horn-led bands, among them Chicago, the Electric Flag and Ten Wheel Drive.
“A lot of the guys (in Blood, Sweat & Tears) would play a Broadway show matinee, then go up to Harlem and play Latin music or R&B and funk at night, or come down to the Village and play pure jazz the next night,” Clayton-Thomas told bestclassicbands.com in 2023. “I was just a blues player: give me three chords and I’ve got a song.”
At its peak, Blood, Sweat & Tears’ appeal was so broad it helped lead to the band’s downfall.
Clayton-Thomas was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1996. “Spinning Wheel,” covered by everyone from James Brown to TV star Barbara Eden, was voted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame a decade later.
Clayton-Thomas is survived by his daughters, Ashleigh Clayton-Thomas and Christine Graham.