BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS 3

With the ordinal numbering of their releases finally sorted out, BS&T returned from their finest ever (self titled) release, with this credible third album.

The album opens with what is for me the band's best ever recording. "Hi-de-ho" may by a straight-forward anthemic version of the Gerry Goffin & Carol King song, but it has real soul and a wonderful chorale on the final chorus. Clayton-Thomas gives one of his great vocal perfomances on this spiritual like dirge.

Once again, we have an album consisting primarily of interpretations (the term "covers" would be inappropriate since, as with Vanilla Fudge it would belittle the originality of the music here) of a diverse selection of songs. Steve Katz gets another shot at lead vocal on his co-composition with Dick Halligan "The battle". This is a rather out of character but nonetheless effective piece, but it is good to hear Clayton-Thomas return on his self composed "Lucretia MacEvil". The reprise of this track allows the band space to indulge in some fine improvisation. Side one closes in rather downbeat fashion with a pretty faithful rendition of James Taylor's "Fire and rain" and a delicate ballad "Lonesome Suzie".

If side one finished on a downbeat note, the mood is completely transformed with an over the top improvisation on the Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the devil". Interestingly, Steve Katz was later quoted as saying that by the time the band came to record this album, the fun was rapidly disappearing, and cites this performance as "like, ridiculous". Things are tightened up again for a sympathetic take on Laura Nyro's "He's a runner", Clayton-Thomas relishing the challenge of this superbly composed piece.

The albums closes with two further interpretations, the first of which is Joe Cocker's lesser know "Somethin' comin' on". The fact that Clayton-Thomas and Cocker have similarly gruff voices perhaps makes covering one of his songs an obvious course of action, but the powerful brass arrangement and improvised interlude here distinguishes this version from the original. The closing "40,000 headmen" was originally recorded by Traffic (the band's second Traffic song following on from "Smiling phases"). Here, the song is used as the basis for a diverse arrangement which includes classical themes and ever changing moods.

While this the band's third album does not quite live up to the expectations set by their landmark second album, it still contains a wealth of fine performances and some inspired interpretations of a diverse range of songs. The pressure on the band to emulate their previous success perhaps showed through at times when they tried just a little too hard, but this remains an album of great merit which is undoubtedly worthy of investigation.

*Footnote - For those to whom the headline means nothing, "Hi-de-hi" was a well known British sitcom, who's catch phrase was "Good morning campers!"

After their huge-selling second album, BS&T regrouped in their NY theatre and then quickly went to studio to record their third album, still mixing unlikely covers with their own original songs. A largely unchanged line-up, but the insufferable DCLayton Thomas is obviously gaining in power and is laying its crooner fantasies all over the group.

After a largely useless soul version (but acceptable) of the Cab Calloway classis Hi Dee Ho, guitarist's Katz's song The Battle is actually fairly interesting with integrated use of the horn section (as opposed to call and response). Things start derailing with the up-tempo piano-led Lucrecia and its Reprise, which sounds like second rate Chicago, although the horn work in the Reprise is impressive. James Taylor's Fire & Rain is again useless and allows David Sinatra-Thomas to be as cheeeeeeesy as you'd fear him to become, and it's ditto for Nyru's He's Runner. The same thing can be said of Lonesome Suzie, where "Ol'Brown Eyes" Clayton does his crooner thing and does it his way. And Joe Cocker's (a real crooner himself) Something Comin' On cover is more upbeat, but believe Joe's Helping Friends do it better.

An interesting but sometimes cheesy track is the Symphony/Sympathy thing, divided into movement and sub-sections, which reads more like throwing dust in our eyes, rather than BS&T being classical composers. If BS&T had missed Traffic's Smiling Phases, they're doing better with 40000 Headmen, but let's face it's the song's outstanding qualities that do much of the job >> it's one of those tune that's so good it's hard to sully it up. The job is correctly done, but no more.

BS&T's third album is definitely a sort of carbon copy of its predecessor, except that Frank Clayton- Sinathomas crooner ambitions have become more evident and this would only get worse in following albums. Cheeeeesy stuff, and not even smelling the way it should, here it's almost foul. Best avoided unless you actually like second rate Ol Blue Eyes impersonators