What The Hell.....

"What The Hell Happened To Blood, Sweat and Tears?". That's the question posed by award winning filmmaker John Scheinfeld in an upcoming documentary film exploring the band's controversial State Department sponsored trip behind the iron curtain in 1970. On April 21, 2023, Omnivore Recordings will release the soundtrack to the film on CD and digital formats, as well as a digital only companion of its instrumental score.

Though the horn rock band founded by Al Kooper, Steve Katz, Bobby Colomby, Jim Fielder, Dick Halligan, Randy Brecker, and Jerry Weiss produced some of the most enduring singles of the late 1960's and early 1970's, songs still played on the radio today, the group has long lingered in the shadows of rock's back pages. Eclipsed in fame by Columbia Records labelmates Chicago, plagued by a series of acrimonious departures from the ranks, and pilloried over the Nixon sponsored tour, the band never earned the classic rock status many felt they deserved. Scheinfeld's documentary aims to change that.

When the US State Department approached the band in 1970, they were on top of the world. Their eponymous 2nd album, introducing lead singer David Clayton Thomas' deep, resonant vocals, yielded 3 smash singles in "You've Made Me So Very Happy", "And When I Die" and "Spinning Wheel", and bested The Beatles' Abbey Road for the 'Album Of The Year Grammy Award'.

Then the band was invited to become the 1st American rock band to perform behind the iron curtain, the political boundary dividing Europe into 2 areas, in place from 1945 until the end of the cold war in 1991. Concerts were staged in Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland, and a film crew accompanied the band with the aim of producing a documentary film. More than 65 hours of footage were captured, but the film never materialized. The band members never saw the footage, and upon their return to the US, were caught in the middle of a political fracas as the youth movement saw them as puppets of the Nixon administration. The band endured numerous personnel shifts and continued to record for Columbia through 1976, for a total of 9 albums, 2 more would arrive on the ABC and MCA labels in 1977 and 1980, respectively, but never recaptured their early glory.

Though the band's history has been plagued by acrimony over the years, Scheinfeld's documentary tells the story with the interview participation of 5 band members including David Clayton Thomas, saxophonist and arranger Fred Lipsius, bassist Jim Fielder, guitarist Steve Katz, and drummer and bandleader Bobby Colomby. Omnivore's soundtrack premieres 10 previously unreleased live performances from the tour including "You've Made Me So Very Happy", "Spinning Wheel", "And When I Die", "Hi De Ho", and "I Can't Quit Her". Other than the band's Woodstock set, released for the 1st time on the 2019 Rhino mega-box, this marks the only live document of this era of the group, Columbia didn't release a live album until 1976.

The album has been produced and compiled by Bobby Colomby, who joins Scheinfeld to provide the liner notes. Colomby has also co-composed the film's original score with David Mann which Omnivore Recordings will release as a digitalonly title. The score, amounting to roughly 20 minutes of music, is performed by the current 2023 lineup of Blood, Sweat & Tears, in essence amounting to the band's 1st studio release since 1980.

"What The Hell Happened To Blood, Sweat and Tears?" arrives in theatres on March 24th, 2023, in New York and Los Angeles, before expanding nationally from Abramorama, with the soundtrack and score release coming on April 21st, 2023, from Omnivore Recordings.