David Clayton-Thomas, the lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears, has died at age 84. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
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. He was 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.
His voice was featured on hits like 'Spinning Wheel,' 'And When I Die,' and 'You've Made Me So Very Happy.' Blood, Sweat & Tears inspired a wave of horn-led bands, including 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.'
The band performed at the 1969 Woodstock festival and toured Eastern Europe the following year on behalf of the State Department. When Clayton-Thomas and other band members denounced the Communist regimes, Rolling Stone wrote that 'the State Department got its money's worth.' Yippies protested a 1970 show at Madison Square Garden.
The band had practical reasons for cooperating with the government: Clayton-Thomas had been denied a green card and faced deportation. But after topping the charts in 1970 with 'Blood, Sweat & Tears 3,' their appeal faded. Clayton-Thomas left the group in 1972 and never regained his former stature.