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♪ One, two, three♪
♪ What goes up♪
♪ Must come down♪
♪ Spinning Wheel Got to go 'round♪
♪ Talkin' 'bout your troubles♪
♪ It's a cryin' sin♪
♪ Ride a painted pony Let the spinning wheel spin♪
♪ Someone is waiting Just for you♪
♪ Spinnin' wheel♪
♪ Spinnin' true♪
♪ Drop all your troubles By the riverside♪
♪ Catch a painted pony♪
♪ Let the spinning wheel fly♪
Keep in mind, this is the first American rock band
to perform behind the Iron Curtain.
The very first.
I don't think any of us knew enough
about that part of the world to even have any expectations.
It was just, "Here we go."
They were responding to this great music.
And this great singer.
They felt this kind of unleashed freedom.
They were really excited,
and they didn't really wanna leave.
The authorities didn't like that at all.
We were about to come on for an encore,
but one of the wives came back, she was almost crying.
"Oh, they're sending the dogs out into the audience."
German Shepherds, you know, to disperse everybody,
'cause we had gotten people too excited.
We were being followed.
We were being monitored in every way.
It seemed very much like a James Bond movie.
We're just musicians, man.
We just went to play some music for people.
We were the number one band in the world,
and it turned into this huge political rat's nest.
The 1968 election showed
that this country
was a pot that was on the stove,
and it's already starting to boil.
Richard Nixon wins the 1968 election
because he promises to get America out of the Vietnam War.
Nixon instead escalates the war.
No more war! No more war!
Peace now! Peace now!
The divide gets deeper,
and society gets more violent.
There was an underlying reason
why we did this tour, but we couldn't tell anyone.
It was definitely a quid pro quo.
We were blackmailed.
I was so frustrated that I couldn't say,
"We had to do this or we wouldn't have had a band."
There's so much more to this story,
you have no idea.
Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland.
That's where you're going, gentlemen, and this film has been prepared
to give you a short briefing on what to expect.
First of all, you're honored guests so just act accordingly.
Don't go wandering off by yourself,
and make sure your State Department companion
knows your whereabouts at all times.
The police and military can be very helpful,
but under no circumstances are you permitted
to take pictures of them,
nor any military installations or airports.
Just abide by the rules.
Speaking of rules, Romania recently passed
a restriction prohibiting long hair.
Uh, even if you're not from that country?
No, it doesn't apply to you.
So keep your passports with you
at all times in case you're stopped.
And I'm sure I don't need to point out
that narcotics are absolutely forbidden.
You're gonna be the first contemporary music group
ever to be sent in a communist country
under the cultural exchange program.
Your tour is being filmed.
This means there will be a total of 57 people,
including yourselves, the film crew
and the State Department staff.
There will be over 15 tons of gear,
so have patience with your hosts.
You'll be giving them quite a culture shock too.
Assistant Secretary Richardson is hosting a reception for you
at the State Department this afternoon at 3:00.
Members of Blood, Sweat & Tears are all young people.
They're all in their 20s,
and they're all interested
in trying this new experience of communicating
with new kinds of audiences in Eastern Europe.
They'll be leaving tomorrow with all of our best wishes.
We were excited by doing it, yeah.
It just seemed like a great way to expand
the band's popularity to a whole new audience.
We, the members of Blood, Sweat & Tears,
go on this tour first as people.
We seek to communicate directly with people over there,
and to bring ourselves some understanding of them.
We speak the language of music,
which is a language
common to just about everyone in the world.
"The group is delighted with the opportunity
to communicate directly with the people of Eastern Europe thru music."
Um, was the group delighted?
Some of the group was delighted.
What are you doing a State Department tour for?
Sponsored by the State Department? Are you nuts?
I think we were naive.
I don't think we realized
how it would bounce up and bite us.
To his credit, Steve did.
I was horribly against it.
Certainly, Steve Katz was the most outspoken
about not approving of the US government,
not approving of what the US government did.
He did talk to the press before the tour
about being reluctant to participate
in a tour on behalf of the government.
Because I was political.
But the guys in the band weren't political.
They were jazz players, or they were rock players.
You know, they voted against Nixon,
or they voted for Nixon as far as I know.
But they're musicians first.
There's something very serious happening.
America is not at peace.
I believe that at some point,
everybody in the United States who opposes the war,
and opposes the military industrial complex,
and opposes the-- the value system
which makes older people laugh at younger people
and not even listen, should stop and say,
"We-- we are on strike until the insanity ends, period,"
and that's why I don't want-- I didn't wanna go on this tour
as a tool of the United States government.
He was very radical
and very, very much into radical politics.
Me, not so much, I'm Canadian, I don't--
But we were involved
in that counter-culture movement of the day,
mostly based around the Vietnam War
and the antiwar movement.
♪ Somethin' goin' on Behind my back♪
To my knowledge,
someone in the government was pretty pissed off
that, um, a Canadian-- and David is a Canadian--
was talking against the war in Vietnam.
But we were all talking against the war in Vietnam.
This was that era,
Nixon,
our age group, flower power.
This is what was going on.
The time has come for action.
By 1970,
this country is riven
by a disagreement.
Heated, passionate disagreement.
It's a horrible moment
because it forces a lot of Americans to look inside
and ask themselves what does it mean to be patriotic?
And they didn't have the same answer.
And because a lot of good people
didn't come up with the same answer,
kitchen table conversations around the country became heated,
and there was a national divide.
And the national divide
is defined in terms of Vietnam.
From Saigon,
this is the American Forces Vietnam Network.
♪ I'm not scared of dying♪
♪ And I don't really care♪
♪ If it's peace You find in dying♪
♪ Well, then Let the time be near♪
Dear Bobby,
I wanna thank you for your music.
Especially those songs I got to know very well in 1969,
when I heard them and Blood, Sweat & Tears for the first time
on the American Forces Vietnam Network.
♪ And when I die And when I'm gone♪
♪ There'll be one child born♪
♪ In this world To carry on, to carry on♪
And then there was "And When I Die,"
one of the songs that we used to sing
in our frequent fits of black humor.
Can you imagine that song blaring from a radio
over the din of a helicopter
full of GI's on the way to a combat assault?
You helped me get through a difficult time.
In this day of the generation gap,
it's unusual to find a musical group
that can get through to almost everybody.
Ladies and gentlemen, here's that group,
Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Blood, Sweat & Tears are one of those bands
whose moment is so big,
uh, that it's almost like they can't follow it.
♪ What a hard world to face♪
♪ In the light of an angry sun♪
♪ Ain't it hard to get on♪
♪ If you ain't got That someone♪
There were a lot of horn bands coming out
in that same era, Chicago,
several others,
but we set a new definition for rock and roll
that included that kind of instrumentation.
Blood, Sweat & Tears
was among those few artists, they weren't fitting into it.
They were leading the way.
In terms of influence,
you can't really imagine a whole world
of horn rock and roll happening without them.
They were just great,
but even their greatness may have been problematic for them.
It's very, very hard to have a nine-piece band
to-- to-- to really have a feeling of one.
This band, I believe, is nine very capable musicians
who try to play music.
Very, very similar, uh, to being in--
in ether an eight-piece band or a ten-piece band.
There would be no Blood, Sweat & Tears without Bobby Colomby.
He was the-- the gel that held it all together.
Jimmy Fielder will always be
one of my favorite people.
You listen to some of those lines that he played,
they're amazing, I mean, they're superhuman.
Dick Halligan, musical genius.
One of those guys
who can pick up any instrument in the room,
whether he's played it or not,
and in an half an hour he'll be playing it.
Jerry Hyman, great, fun guy.
Always smiling, always joking,
always pulling your leg about something.
Steve Katz was a very close friend of mine.
He's a funny guy, he had a good sense for songs,
"Let's find the right songs for the band."
Fred Lipsius, immensely talented,
extremely well-educated musician.
Freddy would take a lot of time writing an arrangement,
but they would always be fantastic,
and they would always come from his heart.
Lew Soloff was such a great trumpet player.
Blistering lead trumpet player.
Lew would not only nail it, he'd sting it.
Chuck Winfield, the nicest man
you'll ever meet in your life.
Other trumpet players probably would have been bummed
because Lewie was the trumpet star.
Chuck just played his part as second trumpet.
I never heard him play a mistake.
He gave it his all,
was totally fine doing what he did.
He was a prince.
To me, David Clayton-Thomas
was the best pop singer during our time.
Powerful, powerful voice.
It seemed like something from deep inside of him.
He was the best band member
in terms of work ethic, making every gig,
knowing what he had to do.
He was incredible.
The thing that held us together
was every guy in that band did what they did
really, really well.
No matter what went on in the band,
whatever political differences or everything else,
when that band hit the stage every night, it gelled.
It was magic.
We're at the airport,
we're ready to leave on this big tour,
and where's David?
David's not there.
I'm ready to get on the plane and all of sudden,
a whole gang of New York City policemen show up
and took me in handcuffs.
After spending most of my teen years in reformatories
and to find myself after having the biggest album in the world
and I was on top of the world
and suddenly I'm in handcuffs again?
Terrified. Terrified.
I thought my life was over at that point.
I became aware of the arrest
when I went to the passenger check-in counter
at the Pan American terminal at Kennedy International Airport.
The charges had been filed by a former girlfriend,
who alleged that he had threatened her with a gun
in December 1969.
The charges had been filed on June 11th,
two days prior to our departure.
During the course of the evening,
Thomas continued to maintain
that the whole thing was a frame-up.
We were told to proceed to Brooklyn night court.
There was a lot of tension.
We were waiting to see if we were gonna be able to go,
if we were gonna be able to make the trip
or are they-- they gonna send him away,
and when David came out,
I just remember he had this haunted look in his eyes.
But when the case was called up,
the judge then requested me to testify
as to the nature and length
of Thomas' proposed absence from the US.
I provided the court with the requested information,
whereupon the judge continued the case until August 12th,
and set bail at $1,000 in cash,
since Thomas is neither an American citizen
nor a resident of New York State.
With my assistance, bail was arranged,
and Thomas was released about 12:30 a.m.
The police of course investigated
and found that it was totally bogus.
I had never threatened anybody with a gun.
I didn't even own a gun.
And, uh, like I say, released me with apologies,
and I joined the band in London and then we flew on to do the tour from there.
But it was a nasty moment.
♪ Lucretia Mac Evil♪
♪ Little girl What's your game?♪
♪ Hard luck and trouble♪
♪ Bound to be Your claim to fame♪
♪ Tail shakin', home breakin'♪
♪ Truckin' through town♪
I'm Donn Cambern, and I was director
of the lost Blood, Sweat & Tears documentary.
"The State Department had no objection
to the proposed film coverage,
as long as all the costs of the film crew
were not the responsibility of the Department.
The Department retains the right to assure that the final product
will not impair the relations between the United States Government
and the three Eastern European governments."
This was my first real...
directing job.
My vision was to make a concert film.
When we arrived in Zagreb, things changed.
We were playing it by ear, I was playing it by ear.
We didn't know exactly what was gonna happen.
It was nerve-racking, but it was really exciting.
♪ Devil got you Lucy under lock and key♪
♪ Ain't about to set you free♪
♪ Signed, sealed and witnessed On the day you were born♪
♪ No use tryin' to fake him out No use tryin' to make him out♪
♪ Soon he'll be Takin' out his doom♪
Yugoslavia was grey. It was kind of lifeless.
Um, that much I remember.
Um, at-- at least Zagreb,
which was the first place we went,
was just kind of big, stone buildings.
Not much energy, not much of anything.
Poverty like we hadn't even seen before in the States.
It was, uh, very, very heart-wrenching.
When we got there, the first night we spent in Zagreb,
and I really thought that I was in a 1940s spy movie,
you know, black and white, it was really strange.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is no time for generalities,
and I will venture to be precise.
Though nobody knows what Soviet Russia
and its Communist international organization
intends to do in the immediate future.
From Stettin in the Baltic,
to Trieste in the Adriatic,
an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.
It's Winston Churchill
who popularizes the idea
that the world is divided by this--
this-- this frontier
between freedom and slavery.
And the countries east of that frontier,
they're under Soviet domination.
And those West are free.
The rotten system you call communism.
And so the Cold War was an existential struggle
between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Every inhabitant of this planet
must contemplate the day
when this planet may no longer be habitable.
Every man, woman and child
lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles,
hanging by the slenderest of threads,
capable of being cut at any moment
by accident or miscalculation,
or by madness.
The generation that grew up in the 1950s
certainly experienced the Cold war
as the threat of nuclear Armageddon.
Always remember, the flash of an atomic bomb
can come at any time, no matter where you may be.
We grew up where we would have air raid drills.
♪ Duck and cover♪
An air raid drill meant if a hydrogen bomb
was going to drop outside of your school,
if you hid under your desk
and put your hands behind your head,
you'd be fine, you know?
So we actually practiced those-- those drills.
The Soviets knew that they were behind.
The Soviet leader was a guy named Nikita Khrushchev.
He knew it,
'cause the Soviets could count missiles.
What they decided was they were so fearful of the United States
that they would exaggerate the number of their missiles.
Then they went on this campaign,
propaganda deception campaign
to lead Americans to believe that the Soviets were ahead
and had missiles that could reach the United States.
It will be the policy of the United States,
to proceed in developing nuclear weapons,
to maintain this superior capability,
for the defense of the free world against any aggressor.
At that time, there was a huge concern
that the United States looked like
a country of brute force power, military power,
and there was an idea that the arts
could make us look like we had a soul.
If visitors from foreign lands
can't all travel to Santa Fe,
the Santa Fe Opera will come to them.
The company is getting ready for a tour
which will carry it halfway around the world,
right up to the edge of the Iron Curtain.
These are not the only American artists
performing on international tours.
There are many more travelling throughout the world
as part of what is known officially
as The President's Special International Program
for Cultural Presentations.
The State Department began this program
officially in 1954,
but there was a tilt towards classical music
in the early years.
By 1956 they're choosing to send jazz as well.
Send these artists over where they can reach the masses.
Where people can see America and hear America
and what we have done, uh, face to face.
One of the people who we're planning to use,
my friend Dizzy Gillespie.
And I'll fight to, uh--
to make the people all over the world
to understand our American way of life.
Uh, the weapon that we will use
is the cool one.
This is the cool weapon that we will use.
So if you liked jazz,
it meant you liked an element of American society.
And wow, when you start to like one element of American society,
what other elements of American society might you like?
That's the role I believe music is playing
when thinking about soft power.
It's-- it's not a secret weapon, but it is a weapon
against cultural mind control
by these authoritarian states.
For the Eastern bloc countries,
the Blood, Sweat & Tears tour comes at a point in history
that is so-- it's full of change.
Um, political change, social change.
It's a very difficult moment.
♪ Smiling phases♪
♪ Bring you flowers♪
♪ You can line 'em up and♪
♪ You can watch them grow For hours♪
♪ And you'll be amazed At the way♪
♪ That they stare as they walk By your door♪
♪ Oh... love♪
Having spanned the generation gap,
the band now aspired to span the political gap.
They were sacrificing for their dream,
giving the communists ten concerts,
and waiving their usual fee of $25,000 per.
Nobody had any idea before the opening concert in Zagreb
how East European audiences would react
to music that communists had been banning officially
as part of a capitalist plot to degenerate their youth.
So, the US State Department,
Cultural Affairs Officers,
and the band were on edge,
each for their own reason.
How we doing?
Oh, my God.
Play "Roumania, Roumania."
I understand it's the first time in history that this stadium has sold out.
- Is it really? - Yeah.
- That I didn't know. - Yeah, the ambassador
came over and told us today.
♪ Do yourself a favor Wake up to your mind♪
♪ Life is what you make it♪
♪ You see But still you're blind♪
♪ Get yourself together Give before you take♪
♪ You'll find out the hard way Soon you're gonna break♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey♪
♪ Smiling phases Bring you flowers♪
♪ You can line 'em up and♪
♪ You can watch them grow For hours♪
♪ And you'll be amazed At the way♪
♪ That they stare As they walk by your door♪
Thank you.
"Some 5,000 cheering young Yugoslavs
gave Blood, Sweat & Tears rousing opening night reception.
Natural spontaneous coverage
by film crew of student enthusiasm
including cheering, clapping and dancing at concert
likely will have favorable impact when shown in US.
Strongest impact will come from scenes of thousands
listening attentively, quietly to American music.
They did not want to miss a sound."
So who is Larry Goldblatt?
Can I ask you the same question?
Where did this guy come from?
Our lawyer called and said,
"I've got a guy that I think would be a great manager for you."
And I went, "I'm all ears, what do you got?"
He says, "Well, he's in prison.
He's, uh, in Chino prison right now,"
and I went, "Where's this going?"
"But he's really clever.
Imaginative, and thinks out of the box,"
I said, "He's in prison."
"Yeah. He'll be perfect. This is the music business."
Larry was a great guy,
and made some great decisions.
He primarily set up the Eastern European tour.
At this particular point in time,
our lead singer, um, had had a problem.
The band had a number one album on the chart,
we were doing incredibly well,
and then David gets his green card removed
through some inside, Washington, DC, political crap
that we didn't know about,
and we don't have a singer
to play in the United States anymore.
I was gonna be deported.
And the band could not afford to lose me at that point.
With three number one singles
and the number one record in the world,
they were gonna do everything they could to keep me in the band.
If we were gonna be able to
have him stay in the States,
we were gonna need some help higher up,
and the State Department is about as higher up as you can get
in-- in matters like that.
So apparently, Larry Goldblatt had figured out a way,
being Larry, to get his green card back,
and that was to make some kind of deal
with the State Department.
And so we were booked on this Eastern European tour.
It was brought to us in such a way
that I knew exactly why we were gonna do it.
But we couldn't say anything about it. It was a secret.
♪ Give me my freedom♪
♪ For as long as I breathe♪
♪ All I ask of living♪
♪ Is to have no chains on me♪
♪ All I ask of living Is to have no chains on me♪
♪ All I ask of dying Is to go naturally♪
♪ Only wanna go naturally♪
♪ Well, here I go♪
♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa♪
♪ Hey, hey♪
♪ Come on, Joe ♪
♪ Don't want To go by the devil♪
♪ Don't want To go by the demon♪
♪ Don't want to go by Satan♪
♪ Don't want to die uneasy♪
♪ Just let me go♪
♪ Naturally♪
♪ And when I die♪
♪ And when I'm dead♪
♪ Dead and gone♪
♪ There'll be♪
♪ One child born♪
♪ In this world to carry on♪
♪ To carry on♪
Thank you. Thank you.
"BST concerts well attended.
Resulted in lasting positive impact.
Extensive media coverage overwhelmingly positive.
As lasting cultural impact on the BST visit persists,
our enthusiasm for the visit mounts--
keeping in mind, of course,
that one astute Yugoslav reviewer did refer
to the visit as "the event of the decade!"
♪ Is that any way for a man♪
♪ To carry on?♪
♪ Lord, I know you think♪
♪ He wants his little loved one Gone♪
♪ Well♪
♪ I love you, baby♪
♪ More than you'll ever know♪
♪ I'm not trying to be♪
♪ Any kind of man♪
♪ You see I'm just trying♪
♪ To be somebody♪
♪ That you can love Trust and understand♪
One place we played in,
uh, Yugoslavia,
um, some people didn't like us.
I think some people threw
beer cans at us or something.
That's my memory of it.
We're all looking at each other saying
"This isn't going well," and it got worse.
People were peeling out of the gig.
By the end, there were not a lot of people left.
That audience couldn't wait to get out of there.
I'll say one thing, when we bomb we do it big.
The end of the show, I walk off the stage,
and I look up, and there's a guy,
a Charles Manson type, beard, crazy eyes,
all the way up on the top, and he sees me, and he starts
coming down, down, down,
I'm going "You know what, it was worth it just for him.
This guy had such a good time,"
and he comes right down to the front,
and I go, "How you doing?"
And he goes, "You stink! You stink!"
And he like, throws-- He tried--
And I get out of the way, and I went...
"The audience tried, but they didn't understand
the music at all.
The sound was strange to them.
We judged they were quite a bit behind us in the music scene.
At any rate, the group left with no encores
and pretty bent out of shape.
At that point they decided to have a meeting for a vote
whether they should continue the tour or split.
The boys decide everything by vote.
Nobody decides anything for them.
It just can't work this way, except that it does."
You know, we have a tendency here to say,
"This is the Iron Curtain, and behind it, all is communism."
But communism is so diverse and varied,
it would be like comparing the government of England
to the government of Italy
and saying they're both democratic countries.
I know myself I said, "Wow, so this is communism.
This is groovy."
Then we went into Romania, Constanta.
We got off the plane, and you could feel
the Iron Curtain slam behind you.
Mr. Blood, Mr. Sweat, Mr. Tears,
your plane is ready.
I met Steve Katz, and we were hanging out in the West Village.
We became good friends, he had just come from a band
called The Blues Project,
and one of the members of The Blues Project
was a guy named Al Cooper.
Al Cooper had a publishing deal,
brill building,
songwriter getting his songs done by other people,
understood the business better than anybody.
Al had always wanted to put horns into The Blues Project.
And Danny Kalb who was the leader of The Blues Project
nixed that idea.
This is Al Cooper, Blood, Sweat & Tears.
It's talent and enthusiasm that makes the band go,
and the music that we do.
Music that I believe in so strongly,
that can only be translated through this band.
I can't explain it any other way
except to have you hear what we do.
♪ My darkest nights Come on like a light♪
♪ I can't quit her♪
♪ Try as I may♪
♪ With all my might She had a woman's touch♪
An opportunity to blend jazz with rock.
I had always kind of wondered why somebody
hadn't-- hadn't already done that-- that kind of thing.
To have like, a full-on big band type sound.
There was nothing like us.
You know, there was no one doing what we were doing.
It was the Cafe Au Go Go in The Village.
I do remember sitting there watching and listening,
and being very, very impressed
that this was a new sound.
I had never seen horns used this way.
Truthfully it floored me, I was knocked out,
and I agreed
to sign them on the spot.
♪ She got her hand on me♪
Al put the deal together,
he got a great producer, John Simon,
and we made a record in a couple of weeks.
I think the first album was great.
Very eclectic, all kinds of different music.
It's like a treasure chest of--
Little kid opening a treasure chest, a music box.
♪ I see your face Everywhere I go♪
I loved the first album.
Rock and roll, when it's horny, that's the best.
And there are these horn arrangements
that are spectacular and that were probably
borrowed by every band that's ever followed
that's dared to do horns.
I even think of the name Blood, Sweat & Tears.
I think it suggested a work ethic.
A band that had really learned their instruments.
A band that knew what the fuck they were doing.
That first album was one of the great
American rock albums.
It was influential, the rock critics loved it.
They were even analogies to being the American Beatles.
The only difference is,
and it's a significant commercial point,
it didn't have singles in it,
but musically it was edgy,
it was pioneering.
It sold 40,000 albums. It was a failure.
If that album was a great success,
you think Al would have been out of the band?
♪ You won't find A manhole there♪
My only problem with it
was I didn't feel that Al was the best singer,
and we asked him to stay in the band as the leader of the band,
but we wanted to get another singer.
I felt the only way we could have success,
the only way we could be on the radio
and be heard was to have a stronger singer.
He said, "Wait a minute, if I'm not the singer, I'm walking."
I was shocked, I was surprised,
this group was building, I was rooting for them.
So that, yes, it was personally disappointing
to see these personal issues come in.
I am now the band leader, Clive and I have a conversation.
He says, "What do you think it's gonna take to keep this together?"
So it begins with auditioning,
and we auditioned a lot of singers.
Bobby Colomby called me,
he said "We'd like you to try out with our new band,
Blood, Sweat & Tears," and we went to a rehearsal
at the Cafe Au Go Go.
I'd only had time to learn one or two songs.
I'll never forget this.
I said "Let's do 'I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know.'
Here we go, one, two, three, one..."
♪ If I ever leave you♪
I said, "That's it, you got the gig."
I don't think he sang--
I don't think he sang more than that.
I was jumping up and down when I heard him
after he finished the tune, uh, like a little kid.
Uh, so excited.
We all knew he's the guy.
♪ I chose you for the one♪
♪ Now I'm having so much fun♪
♪ You treated me so kind♪
♪ I'm about to lose my mind♪
♪ You made me so♪
♪ Very happy♪
♪ I'm so glad you♪
♪ Came into my life♪
If you listen to the second album
as opposed to the first, the first had echo
and all kinds of sound effects.
The second album is very flat, right in your face.
It was beautifully conceived.
That was one of the reasons, that and David singing,
made it into a hit record.
♪ 'Cause you came And you took control♪
♪ You touched my very soul♪
I used to call Billboard and Cashboxevery week
to find out whether the album was on the charts or not,
and in Cashbox,it went up to number 16 one week,
I couldn't believe it, I was walking on air,
I said, "Oh, my God, this is fabulous.
We're a hit act."
I called up next week, the woman who I would talk to
who said, "I can't find it."
I'm saying "Well, what the heck," you know.
"It went up to 16, that's pretty good," right?
She calls me back, and says, "You know what,
I didn't think to look at number one."
What we had with the second album
would became one of the best-selling albums
at that time in history,
with three huge singles,
distinctive singles.
Memorable singles.
♪ Thank you, baby♪
In the heyday of this band,
you could not avoid Blood, Sweat & Tears.
You turned on the radio, you were bound to hear one of our songs.
We were ubiquitous. I'm serious, we were everywhere.
The speed with which it happened was astounding.
We were all middle-class guys, we didn't know,
all of a sudden, sort of just changed our lives.
Two promoters, Mike Lang, Artie Kornfeld,
have an idea of doing a concert
in New York, upstate somewhere.
Without having the biggest band
in the world at that moment,
it's not gonna be as easy to get other people to sign on.
So one of the first bands they offered a gig to,
was Blood, Sweat & Tears.
To the aging kids who went to Lollapalooza
or to the, you know, slightly younger kids
who went to Coachella, like, that universe
of festivals, it all goes back to Woodstock.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome with us, Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Woodstock was the mother of all festivals,
and it was sort of this accidental happening that changed the game.
But it also based everyone in a light
of being the anointed ones.
The new generation that was going to sort of change the world.
♪ Like medicine, baby♪
♪ You're good for me♪
♪ Like honey, darlin', yeah♪
♪ I know you're sweet to me♪
♪ Each passing day♪
♪ Brings us Much closer together♪
♪ The love You give me, darlin'♪
♪ Just gets better and better♪
♪ That's why my love for you♪
♪ Keep on growing♪
♪ More and more all the time♪
♪ More and more♪
♪ All the time, all right♪
Most people don't know that we were at Woodstock.
My daughter called me up, and said,
"Dad, I thought you played at Woodstock,"
I say, "I did," "I saw the movie and you weren't in it."
Well, a lot of people weren't in it.
What happened is the big gates had all been knocked down.
600,000 people had mobbed the fences,
and broke them down, and there was no money,
so the promoters couldn't pay anybody.
Then our manager, a guy named Bennett Glotzer at the time,
and when we hit the stage, we played like one, maybe two songs,
and he ordered the cameras turned off.
History belongs to the one who gets in the movie,
and they did not get in the movie, why?
Probably 'cause, you know,
the manager wanted an extra five grand,
and he didn't get it,
so then he goes "Okay, we're not in the movie."
It's easy to make fun of Bennett Glotzer
keeping them out of the Woodstock movie,
but he wasn't the only one, there were other smart managers
who said, "They're not paying enough to get you in the movie."
So you never know, like, how history gets written.
Now, the next question
that you're all going to ask is,
"Do you feel like you should have been in the movie?"
Fuck yeah! It would have changed everything.
You're asking me, was Blood, Sweat & Tears
on a suicide mission
playing Caesars Palace?
Uh, well,
we certainly thought it could be a suicide mission.
On the other hand, we could see it
as opening a door for other people in rock and roll
to have a meaningful place to play.
Now everybody does it, The Stones, Elton John, everybody's doing it.
But it was a very controversial thing to do in those days.
Vegas was everything that was garish and against everything
that the counterculture stood for.
So we got killed doing that.
♪ Go down gamblin'♪
♪ Say it When you're runnin' low♪
♪ Go down gamblin'♪
♪ You may never have to go, no♪
Larry Goldblatt, our manager, was very creative
and he got us into Caesars Palace,
which no one had-- I don't think a rock band
had ever played there,
and when we played at Caesars Palace,
we broke Sinatra's attendance record.
The crème de la crème of Hollywood was there that night.
Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie,
you know, Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier,
and I walked out, and looked in the audience,
and went "Oh, my God, this is surreal."
And it was a tremendous success in that way,
but again, that underground press
of the day, "Oh, sellout."
Playing Las Vegas, big mistake,
but boy, a lot of fun.
It was not fatal to them, but it would, certainly
didn't add to their luster.
But the next gig we had after Las Vegas
was the Fillmore East,
which is one of the hippest places
you could play in the United States.
♪ Go down gamblin'♪
Then we played a fundraiser at Madison Square Garden
with Jimi Hendrix, and it was amazing,
and then we played in Cleveland to raise money
for the ACLU to reopen the case
for the kids that got massacred at Kent State.
We didn't abandon our fan base at all.
There's no question, Blood, Sweat & Tears
was still a powerful draw
as far as audience and their big album is concerned.
And I'll preface this by saying, we were one year away
from when they videoed the Grammys.
So we're not videoed, or on camera.
We missed all of that.
We were nominated for many Grammy Awards.
The winner for album of the year,
the most prestigious award, Blood, Sweat & Tears.
A distant second, Abby Road.
When they won Best Album, and not only beat The Beatles,
but got the award handed to them by Louie Armstrong,
there was nothing cooler than that.
When we left Yugoslavia,
our next stop was Romania.
Romania.
We had stepped into a different world.
The first thing that we saw when we got off the plane
were guards with submachine guns
across the tarmac, looking at us.
Everything was kinda dark,
I don't mean the sun didn't come out,
it was very oppressive.
It just felt like there's no freedom.
We're all alone in a foreign land.
Well, those are certainly not friendly glances.
Just who do all those sinister eyeballs belong to?
You know I got kind of a sneaky feeling we're being watched.
Oh, nonsense, Bullwinkle. Who'd wanna watch us?
Well, the answer to that was simple enough, everybody.
As soon as everything was at the hotel,
they started snooping through it.
And I had watched my James Bond movies.
So I knew you put a thread over the drawer,
and if you came back, and the thread was gone,
then you would know somebody had opened the drawer.
Well, they did.
Most of the film crew as well as the band members
have very long hair,
and they are dressed excessively
eccentric and garrulous.
When we'd go into a coffee shop,
and there would be a guy sitting there
with a newspaper upside-down with a hole in it,
you know looking at us, and they would follow us around.
It was wonderfully wacky.
Just the way you would think
a spy thriller would be.
It was incredible.
Like, men in black hats and black overcoats.
I mean, you could spot them three miles away.
In one sense it was very, very laughable,
but in another sense, their presence was all around us.
I stepped out of the hotel and took a picture,
and, like, two guys grabbed me.
Took the camera, stripped the film out of the camera.
"You can't take a picture of that bridge, it's a military bridge."
Uh, just like that.
I'm wandering outside the hotel,
it's almost midnight,
and it's the guy with the newspaper,
and he's-- he's doing a lot of this,
and I'm walking here, and he's...
and I'd walk over here.
I was having breakfast.
I don't remember what I ordered, but I noticed some--
Like, in a Peter Sellers movie.
There was a man behind me like-- like--
Almost like he was doing it on purpose,
but they were serious, and it was very corny to me,
but he was like, trying to be not noticed.
It's only me and him, duh.
Little did our heroes know that at that moment
they are the object of close scrutiny
by an eye high in the sky.
Why is this fearless leader keeping tab on our heroes?
Maybe we'll find out next time--
- Over your dead body. - And maybe we won't.
The Romanian leader was a horrific authoritarian
named Nicolae Ceausescu.
Ceausescu was a dictator,
he's a monster, actually.
In 1968
the Czech government
had tried to reform itself,
and went too far, and the Soviets responded
by invading Czechoslovakia.
Ceausescu-- wants--
sees this balancing act.
Uh, he wants to get
more autonomy from the Soviets,
and more economic benefits
from the United States,
without triggering a Soviet invasion,
and without losing any real power.
It is the sense that Ceausescu wants to be
a maverick communist
that leads the Nixon administration
to be interested in him.
It is the first visit
of a president of the United States to Romania.
The first state visit by an American president
to a Socialist country or to this region
of the continent of Europe.
And the purpose of my visit here is to improve
communications between our two nations.
Traiasca prietenia Romano-Americana.
Nixon's visit to Romania establishes
a relationship with Ceausescu,
and that's the opening
through which Blood, Sweat & Tears will enter the country.
Now what's ironic is that, you know,
Richard Nixon couldn't stand rock music,
and the idea that the Romanians think
they're doing something for Richard Nixon
by letting Blood, Sweat & Tears come to Romania
is sort of very funny in retrospect.
I mean it...
♪ Someone's waiting Just for you♪
♪ Spinning wheel Spinning through♪
♪ Catch a painted pony Let the spinnin' wheel fly♪
Hey, everybody, could we be quiet for one second?
David, David, can you listen to me, please?
They're gonna want another set.
The audience would not stop cheering.
They cheered and cheered and cheered.
Oh, those kids were amazing.
They just-- uh, they loved it,
they wanted, uh, encore after encore.
- Come on, let's do it. - I can't.
♪ I can't quit her, no♪
♪ She got a hand on me♪
♪ She got a hold of my soul♪
♪ I can't quit her♪
♪ 'Cause I see her face Everywhere I go♪
♪ In the city streets, In the country field♪
♪ The back of my mind I know it can't be real♪
♪ For a woman to possess All the tenderness she had♪
♪ Yeah♪
♪ Let me go, woman♪
♪ I can't quit her, no♪
♪ 'Cause on my darkest night She comes on like a light♪
♪ I can't quit her♪
♪ Try as I may, With all my might♪
♪ She had a♪
♪ Ooh, can't quit her, no♪
♪ Hey♪
Thank you.
They are looking at freedom, and they're reacting to it,
and that didn't go well with the government for sure.
That moment where it might start
to look like social protest,
or it might start to even just look...
um, like not just enjoying the music.
That would be a concern.
The kids were jumping up out of their seats,
yelling, with peace signs going, "USA, USA, peace, peace."
USA, USA, USA, USA.
I remember seeing one youngster in the audience
with chains, like this.
Anyway, so this was a bit much
for the Romania authorities.
This was-- uh, this kind of--
It was too chaotic for them to deal with.
This, uh, repressed desire for freedom.
As soon as the audience started
to really erupt into all of their happiness,
the soldiers started to move in.
USA, USA, USA, USA.
Someone started a fire.
This drove the guards crazy.
There was a lot of grabbing and stomping on the floor.
The audience was reacting
to what the guards were doing to them.
They were trying to say, "To hell with you.
We're gonna be doing what we want."
It was absolutely fabulous
how the band and their music
touched them so deeply.
I was with Lew when we got a call from Larry Goldblatt
that there was a meeting in Steve's room.
How many of you are here now? One, two.
Five are here and two more are on their--
- How long is it gonna take? - We're stopping.
Our man at the embassy
explained to us that our concert had been termed
by the Romanian government as too successful.
You have to realize
what kind of a society you are in.
Who you are dealing with.
You were entirely too successful
for the likings of the regime.
The question is whether you will have a show tonight or not
and the question is whether you will do any filming in Romania or not.
The presence of a film crew
was a game changer in a lot of ways.
From the embassy's slightly nervous perspective,
having the film crew there
was amplifying the crowd's excitement
in a way that might have been counterproductive
in terms of controlling the event,
in terms of not angering the Romanian government.
What held these police states together was fear.
Fear of the police. Fear of the military.
Fear that your neighbor was an informant.
That you'd lose your job. That you'd lose your apartment.
That you might go to jail. That you might be shot.
When you have an ecstatic audience response
to a cultural moment,
many people forgot about that fear,
but not everybody.
Representers of the Romanian government
were fearful for their own jobs.
"Oh, my God, if Ceausescu hears
that there was a pro-USA demonstration on my watch, I may go to jail."
They have laid down certain conditions
which they want to have met.
I'm not saying for a moment that we will force you,
that we will demand from you that you meet these conditions,
but I think it's clear that if none of their conditions are accepted,
we will have no show tonight.
They would also have been very concerned about what got onto film.
They wouldn't want
the police to be seen as repressive
in a way that would then look bad in the West.
This is the Bucharest manifesto.
"Number one, more jazz.
Two, less rhythm,
by that they mean big beat, rock,
whatever excites the audience to what they call--
whatever they-- whatever excites what they call
the peripheral characters in the audience
to craziness, as they said.
Three, fewer gestures and body movements.
Four, no taking off articles of clothing on stage.
Five, keep technicians with long hair off stage.
Six, no filming tonight.
Seven, if the audience makes too much noise,
stop the show.
Eight, maximum of two encores.
Nine, reduce sound level.
Ten, no throwing musical instruments off stage.
It seems ludicrous now,
but this really happened.
We had a song called "Smiling Phases"
and on the intro of the song,
I hit a big gong.
Bang.
It's kind of rock and roll theatre.
I hit the gong three times, and on the fourth time,
I would just toss it on the ground.
When it hit the floor,
the band would kick in to "Smiling Phases."
That was just part of our show.
We've been doing it like that way for a year.
We didn't realize
that we had struck a wrong nerve with Ceausescu.
Now let me just tell you the way it was left
and the way that they understand it now.
I told them I would ask you
to play the-- more jazz,
and not throw the gong off the stage.
Uh, and I would ask the sound technicians
if they could have an-- uh, the proper sound
by decreasing the level, and that's all.
May I ask, who is this-- the man in Romania
who's the jazz, uh, finder?
Who's the man that's gonna stand there with a jazz meter?
Not enough jazz.
Can I tell them
that you will remember what we discussed here?
- You listening, Bobby? - Yes.
You can tell them that and we'll go to play.
And that you'll play more jazz and-- Fine.
- We can tell 'em-- - So you could-- yeah, right.
Well, you would go and play more jazz,
but I don't wanna play more jazz maybe.
We'll play more jazz.
In the contract that exists for your being here,
one clause in that contact says
that the show must be decent.
What are the consequences
if we do the same show as we did last night, period?
- Without dancing-- - No, wait, no.
No, because you can't-- Dan you--
If he gets into it, you can't guarantee that.
At the meeting, we had no choice
except to agree to try and stop trouble.
I think almost everyone was really uptight
about our situation there
and we did not wanna change around our set so drastically
that our music would completely change.
So we were basically saying to the government,
"Screw you," you know,
"We're gonna do as good a job as we can
and make the audience happy
with as much rock and roll as we can,"
and that's what we did.
♪ Something coming on♪
♪ Don't know what it is But it's getting stronger♪
They had demanded that there was no filming.
I talked to my five cameramen and said,
"I'm sure that you all have your still cameras with you?"
They said, "Yeah." I said, "Pull 'em out.
We can't shoot it with our 16 millimeter,
we'll shoot our 35 stills, and they can't stop us."
♪ Suddenly she came in♪
♪ Looked like She'd been gaming♪
♪ Doing things With everybody else♪
♪ When I called out loud♪
♪ She answered from the crowd♪
♪ That she'd spend her life Upon the shelf♪
♪ Something coming on♪
♪ Don't know what it is But it's getting stronger♪
♪ I've got a feeling In my bones♪
♪ And I hope you let it last A little bit longer♪
As the lead singer,
I get a good read of the audience.
I could tell them kids in the audience were praying.
"Please, please, hit the gong.
Please, do it, please."
Give them that, you know what I mean?
Time came,
started "Smiling Phases,"
and I looked at Lew Soloff and he looked--
looked at me and said, "Fuck 'em."
David throws the gong into the audience.
In slow-motion I'm imagining like The Godfather,
machine guns slowly-- in slow motion,
and all blood and everything coming out of all of us, dead.
Blood, Sweat & Tears is dead, you know.
Thank you, David.
♪ Smiling phases Bring you flowers♪
And I wanted to go on record
saying I'm proud of David.
Why?
Because that was his anti-establishment--
uh, even though it was the establishment
of the Romanian government,
it was still, uh, the right thing to do.
Come on, guys, let's go. Steven.
Let's go out and take a bow, okay?
Let's take a bow. Come on. No?
Don't play. Don't play. No. - No?
Get David in here. Get David in here.
David is out. David, come back.
The kids weren't gonna leave,
and it was just yelling and-- and singing
and just having a great time getting real rowdy.
Rand, I'm excited. I wanna play for those kids.
One more song won't make a difference.
- I don't either, man.
But yelling at 'em is not gonna get anything done.
Now we can do an encore and we can cool that crowd down.
He's telling us not to do it. They're telling us not to.
I wanna run over people, man, and ruin something.
All of a sudden the police brought in dogs.
Set the dogs loose on the crowd.
You see those dogs going into the crowd?
The kids ran through a plate glass window in the back.
True, they broke it.
They-- they stood there
and broke the window, lit a fire.
Lit a fire? I walked off that stage,
the last goddamn thing I saw, man,
was those kids laughing, man, and they're happy.
We gave them guns and bloodshed, that's what we gave them
and all they wanted to do was be happy.
One kid had managed to get backstage,
and he just wanted an autograph.
The police saw him
and saw that he wasn't supposed to be there.
Took him into a dressing room and beat the crap out of him.
He came back out all bruised and bloody,
and they said, "Now you can have your autograph."
I mean I d-- I don't' wake up screaming
or anything like that,
but, uh, yeah it's-- it's-- uh,
those images will-- will never leave my brain.
These regimes,
they tried to put their best foot forward
when visitors came.
When they allowed people in.
That night, the regime took the mask off,
and so the band saw the reality
of-- of life in-- in Ceausescu's Romania.
"Mr. Ted Arthur from the State Department,
whose activity has been under observation of the security,
told me about the regret the State Department has
regarding the behavior
of the band Blood, Sweat & Tears.
The BS&T documentary crew shot several sequences
whose inclusion in finished film
would be most unfortunate
from viewpoint of embassy's relations
with Romanian authorities and institutions."
After all of that excitement,
we got the word that the government intended
to take the exposed film and destroy it.
They did not want it to leave Romania.
The guards at the airport
insisted on putting our film cans
through an X-ray machine,
knowing that the radiation
would erase all of the images on the film.
All the incredible moments we captured on film were gone,
or so the guards thought.
What they didn't know is that the night before,
my crew didn't take the exposed film
to the hotel as usual.
The exposed film was taken to the US Embassy,
and I was told it was stored
in the kitchen in a refrigerator.
This is all now catering
to my idea of the James Bondstory.
The next morning,
in a scene right out of Mission: Impossible,
our crew removed the exposed film from cans
and replaced it with rolls of blank film stock.
The exposed film was then put into cans
where the blank stock had been.
The guys on the film crew
packed all the film in these cardboard boxes,
just nondescript looking cardboard boxes,
got the to the airport, took them themselves
across the tarmac to the airplane
and, uh, some policemen sees them doing
and says, "What you got in there?"
And they said, "Seatbelts."
"Filmic coverage,
according to Escort Officer Martin Wenick,
was smuggled out of the country by unit cameraman Terry Gould.
Gould smuggled the film on the aircraft with other material
on the pretense that he was pilot of the plane.
Mr. Wenick strongly emphasized
the need of earliest review of all the footage,
with department exercising
its responsibility in seeing to it
that all objectionable sequences be removed
prior to review by the host countries.
If reason fails to persuade,
Wenick suggested that we go so far
as to stop release of the film."
It was just very, very scary.
I mean it was like, when you feel good
to have-- to-- to-- to fly into, uh, Soviet Poland,
when it feels like you're free,
you know, Romania's gotta be pretty bad.
Warsaw was a great metropolitan city,
very hip, they had jazz music,
they had American records, they knew us by name.
It was like coming out of a dark tunnel
into the sunlight again.
♪ Lucretia Mac Evil♪
♪ Little girl, What's your game?♪
♪ Hard luck and trouble♪
♪ Bound to be Your claim to fame♪
♪ Tail shakin', home breakin' Truckin' through town♪
♪ Each and every country Mother's son hangin' 'round♪
♪ Drive a young man insane♪
♪ Evil, that's your name♪
I saw...
troops in trucks.
And I realized
they must have heard what happened in Romania,
and expected
the-- the same kind of riot,
and it was the exact opposite.
It was a beautiful audience, sophisticated, knowledgeable,
and whatever they were preparing for never happened.
♪ Oh, Lucy♪
The audiences were fantastic.
The reason is they were really starved for this kind of music.
They just really were warm to us.
♪ Now you're gone, girl♪
♪ And the lamp post Call your name♪
♪ I can hear them♪
♪ In a spring of frozen rain♪
♪ Now you're gone, girl♪
♪ And the time's Slowed down till dawn♪
♪ It's a cold room♪
♪ And the walls ask Where you've gone♪
Once again, welcome, and we're glad that you're here
and we hope you'll enjoy your stay.
Now time for questions.
Do you think that this trip
will have any effect on you
after you return to America?
I came on this trip-- uh,
my personal feelings, my beliefs politically,
at home I felt were my priorities.
Rather than coming here,
I felt that we had things to do at home in America first
because of the struggle there.
And now I feel, since I can go home
and take care of the priorities, I'm glad I came.
I'm glad I did this. I'm glad this was the priority.
Because, uh, the first thing that I have to do
is to help keep my country together.
We have travelled in countries
where...
certain repressions are a way of life.
Where people don't enjoy...
the privilege of spontaneous outburst,
and I think it's given us all a new appreciation
of various freedoms that we took for granted.
I think all of the pain
and the-- the angst
of the last four days in Romania
kinda came out on stage that night.
We walked out on that big, beautiful concert bow in Warsaw,
one of the most beautiful concert theaters in the world,
packed to the rim,
and the band just exploded that night.
It was an amazing concert.
I can remember it to this day
as being one of the most remarkable concerts
we ever played.
We did, like, four encores.
We couldn't get off the stage.
They kept bringing us back and bringing us back.
♪ Doing things For everybody else♪
♪ When I called out loud♪
♪ She answered from the crowd♪
♪ That she'd spend her life Upon the shelf♪
And the most important thing is
that we made audiences happy over there.
Where they wouldn't have had that experience.
And that was something that I hadn't thought about at the beginning.
How happy these people would be,
and how appreciative they were.
And that was-- that-- I wanna underline that
because that was a great experience.
The State Department felt it got good value
out of Blood, Sweat & Tears.
They were worried about the problematic aspect,
things that might have gotten on film that shouldn't...
but on the balance,
they're pretty happy
with the work that's being accomplished
through these Blood, Sweat & Tears concerts.
It looks like rock and roll music
is getting into the Cold War.
The communists are letting the State Department
send American rock and roll groups
behind the Iron Curtain.
The first group to make that scene
just wound up a tour in Romania, Yugoslavia and Poland.
If there has to be a Cold War, this is the way to fight it.
Blood, Sweat & Tears.
I'll just introduce, um, everybody to you.
David Clayton-Thomas, Bobby Colomby and Steve Katz.
When we came back,
we were blindsided by a-- uh, a press conference.
What'd they tell you about America?
About inside the Iron Curtain?
To see what's happening over there,
it's very hard to describe it in a press conference.
It's very hard to see what these people are living through.
How does it make you feel about America now?
Uh, we were affected very deeply
as people over there.
We were very hung up
in criticizing what's wrong in this country.
But you suddenly get a new perspective
when you see something that is so much more wrong.
We sat and-- and took questions,
which were pretty hostile, you know.
"Oh you're working for the government."
What made you decide to go?
What made me decide to go?
I decided to-- I decided to go
because I was a musician first rather than a politician.
You got the sense
that they were angry that we did this tour.
And you could feel it.
What's your response to the State Department--
I just wanted to get that in.
The State Department, as we found out, you know,
we have a-- there's a tendency in this country to say
"people," "government," you know?
Well, government is a diverse and varied thing.
Did the State Department put any restrictions...
- None. - ...before you left?
Well, we went over there with the idea
of just how much so-called communist fascism
is American propaganda, and just how much of it isn't.
I found that the propaganda is pretty damn close to the truth.
It's scary.
I think we were all in shock, but I think...
I think we knew.
I think we knew at that point that, uh,
this had not gone well.
They're now ambassadors
of a more nuanced view of the Cold War.
Well, they didn't ask to be, they didn't expect to be,
and nobody wanted to listen to them when they came back.
Actually, I had completely forgotten about that story.
It was so smarmy a headline I said,
"Yeah, that sounds like me."
It was one of the first stories I did
when I started out at Rolling Stonemagazine,
and I started to specialize in covering the underground
and what we called it was a cultural revolution.
I was really young then,
and, of course, I was so egotistical.
This is from September 3rd, 1970...
and the headline is "Blood, Sweat & Tears Turned Backs On Communism."
"Just arrived from their recent State Department tour,
members of Blood, Sweat & Tears indicated at a press conference here
they were so overwhelmed by Communist police tactics,
that only a book and feature length film
could adequately express their shock.
'We went over there with the idea of just
how much so-called Communist fascism
is American propaganda'
said David Clayton-Thomas,
the group's pudgy-faced lead vocalist."
That was nasty.
"It soon became clear that the State Department got its money's worth."
Well, what do I take away from this?
That was a kind of a snotty story.
I probably took a little liberty with them,
'‘cause I didn't think they were part of the cultural revolution,
but I see things a lot differently now.
Let me just say this about the cultural revolution.
I mean some of us just became bigger assholes,
and I'm only speaking for myself.
Rolling Stone give you the impression
that they've somehow become this strong anti-Communist.
So then people might have thought, "Well, they were brainwashed.
You see, they went on this tour
and the US government brainwashed them."
It just made them look uncool.
That's a worse crime than being a deviant or a heroin addict.
To be uncool is punishable by death in rock criticism.
I had not changed my position in terms of
how I felt about what our government was doing.
That-- I mean, that was still the same.
But as far as thinking,
"Maybe there's another system of government
that's, like, way better than our democracy.
Maybe it's really better."
It ain't. It really isn't.
"That a rock band would identify itself in any way
with the present administration suggested that commercial success
had turned their heads in an unfortunate direction.
Somewhat awed to hear opinions that I might expect from, say,
a liberal Republican congressman,
coming from the members of a premiere rock group,
I suggest the possibility that Blood, Sweat & Tears
may soon become identified in the underground
as the Fascist Rock Band."
I really think that, uh, the fact that--
that the kids of today are looking to the pop stars
for a political, uh, concept is a very good idea,
because who else is more qualified than a pop star,
who-- who knows as much as he knows about politics.
One, two, three, four.
" by Blood, Sweat & Tears]
♪ Hi-de-ho♪
♪ Hi-de-hi♪
♪ Gonna get me A piece of the sky♪
♪ Gonna get me some Of that old sweet roll♪
♪ I'm singing Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de♪
♪ Hi-di-ho♪
"Blood, Sweat & Tears made its first New York appearance
since returning from Eastern Europe at Madison Square Garden
Saturday night, July 25.
Approximately 15,000 persons attended the concert
and cheered the group to two encores.
Outside the Garden, Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies were picketing the concert."
Abbie Hoffman was the most prominent member of the Yippies.
They were part of the broad coalition
of antiwar demonstrators.
Their approach to demonstration was political theater.
Abbie Hoffman knew how to take a picture.
He knew how to-- Think of him this way.
He's an Instagram artist before Instagram.
You know, he saw the concert by Blood, Sweat & Tears
was the moment to get coverage,
and get attention for what he believed in and for himself.
And so you have basically musical artists
being confronted by a performance political artist.
Oh, my God.
You've seen this part?
Here we go. Should I hold it longer for you?
Abbie was handing this out?
"Recently, Blood, Sweat and Bullshit
went on a CIA-sponsored tour of Eastern Europe
to bring our rock revolution behind the Iron Curtain."
"The Central Intelligent Agency's so lame,
is to sabotage governments,
unfriendly or neutral to the..."
Hard to read this word.
"...Pigs..." capital letter, "...in Washington,
and to create false propaganda
about how happy everyone in the good ol' U.S. of A really is."
"For complicity in spreading such lies
and ignoring the obvious racism and imperialism
of the Pigs they have worked for,
Blood, Sweat and Bullshit is guilty of treason!!!"
"...is guilty of treason!!!"
In quotes, three exclamation points, "treason!!!"
"In the end, it looks like our blood, our sweat
and the CIA's bullshit.
Resist, stop buying albums and attending concerts
of these Pig collaborators."
I think they have a weak case here.
I never thought Blood, Sweat & Tears as political in any way,
and I don't think they did anything other than go there.
They didn't hold pro-America, pro-Nixon ral--
Did they? Were they Nixon supporters?
Well, this is bullshit. This is bullshit about bullshit.
♪ Rolling up my spine♪
♪ Turning on the things that'd never been turned on♪
♪ Talk about the woman♪
♪ Good god♪
Madison Square Garden.
We're playing "Something's Coming On," it goes like this.
♪ Somethin' comin' on♪
And builds and builds and builds.
And then Freddy starts playing.
I hear...
Someone throws something from the audience,
it hits my right cymbal...
and something lands on my floor tom-tom, some debris.
And it's horse shit. It's horse shit!
Someone threw a bag of horse shit.
Freddy's playing his alto solo and looks at me,
I'm going, "There's shit on my drum.
There's shit on my-- Just play."
They were quickly ushered out,
but it left a... ...pardon me, a smell.
It-- it tainted that concert.
And I think the realization
that we were in a world of trouble at that point,
that going to Eastern Europe was not gonna be forgiven
by the counterculture.
There was a definite
anti-Blood, Sweat & Tears sentiment that was palpable.
Usually when you're attacked
for your political point of view,
it's from the left or the right.
We, on the other hand, were attacked by both sides.
The right was angry with us,
because we were anti-Vietnam, antigovernment, anti-Nixon,
but we were also attacked by the left,
because of the association with the State Department.
I felt cancelled, because people thought
we were something that we weren't.
It made me wanna retreat.
I was very--
I was-- it-- it broke my heart, actually.
It was very, very sad.
"Mr. Speaker,
the over-burdened American taxpayer is dancing
to the acid rock tune of a $40,000 tab,
courtesy of the elite hierarchy of the exalted State Department.
The discotheque diplomats waved the baton of approval
on this latest cultural exchange program,
when it authorized a travel grant for the rock group
Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Singer David Clayton-Thomas, a Canadian citizen,
who has lived on the fat of our land
for seven of his 29 years,
is allowed much more freedom in his assaults
on 'Uncle Sugar Daddy' who is footing the bill.
Pointing to the peace symbol
imprinted on his purple sweatshirt,
he said at a State Department reception, quote,
'I don't happen to wear this by accident.
I wore it because I believe in it.'
He went on to say the group doesn't stand
for the things Mr. Nixon is doing.
There is no excuse for this country
subsidizing the travel and derisive drivel of an alien
who was selected to represent the United States ostentatiously
in three captive nations."
"It is not sweet music to the American people to hear
the harmony of discord being played at their expense."
- I guess that's it. - So, how do you react to that?
Oh, I think he's right.
No, of course, it's ridiculous.
Oh, I'm not gonna give it any kind of reaction whatsoever.
It's drivel.
We can hear that every day on television today, can't we?
Silly, partisan baloney like that.
Congressman Scherle's complaint found its way to Henry Kissinger
who was the National Security Advisor.
Kissinger's people did a little investigation,
and Kissinger wrote Nixon a memo.
"The tour through communist countries
apparently had a constructive impact
on the members of the band, who, on return,
reflected more balanced perspectives about the United States.
Their new outlook was picked up in the press
and as a result, the radical left, led by Mr. Abbie Hoffman,
picketed the band's concert in New York,
charging that the band had become 'Pig Collaborators.'"
Nixon not only read the memo,
but had some ideas about what to do
with the information contained in the memo,
and he wrote out instructions at the bottom.
"K-- it might be worthwhile
to get the quotes on page 3 broadly circulated.
If a way can be found in addition
to theReader's Digest coverage.
Buchanan or Huebner might have an idea
as to how youth leaders might get the message."
This was a lose-lose situation with the band.
The band had come back with a different perspective
and people were saying, "We worried all along you'd become tools of Nixon,
and look what just happened-- you became tools of Nixon."
We had no choice, we had to do this tour.
We were blackmailed.
It was extortion, was what it was, yeah, yeah.
And nobody-- nobody's known about this for years.
We were told that David was gonna be losing his green card,
because he had, like, a run-in with the police,
or a-- a record in Canada years before,
and they were using that as an excuse to kick him out.
I had a very troubled childhood.
Spent most of my teen years as a guest of the government,
and that's haunted me ever since.
So, apparently, Larry Goldblatt had figured out a way,
being Larry, to get his green card back.
Larry had this idea,
that was to go to the State Department
and offer the band in a cultural exchange in some way.
It was definitely a quid pro quo...
to help David stay in the country.
And it worked.
I was just against doing the whole thing,
but I would have had to leave the band.
So we had to back David.
I'm really sorry that my past
had brought these problems to the band.
I've always regretted it.
Probably should have listened to Steve
and not done that Eastern European tour, because it did hurt us.
It hurt us badly.
I didn't realize how much our fanbase was rooted
in that counterculture revolution.
On the other hand, if I didn't, I'd have probably been deported
and there wouldn't have been a Blood, Sweat & Tears, so...
♪ Just yesterday morning♪
♪ They let me know You were gone♪
Flying back, I thought about that whole experience.
How glorious it was.
When we got back to Los Angeles...
I actually sat with my editor,
and we did, uh, like a rough version
in a relatively short period of time.
♪ I've seen fire And I've seen rain♪
"Dear Mark.
I was happy to have your confirmation today on the phone.
That you will do everything possible to ensure
that the sequences showing militiamen in Romania and Poland,
will not be used in the film."
"The initial review in November, 1970,
of the film in rough edit form, two and a half hours in length,
by Department and USIA officers was disappointing
and recommendations for the purpose of achieving
a balanced and good film were forwarded to Mr. Klein."
The producer was in a position
that he had to satisfy the State Department.
The State Department said, "We really want a one-hour film
we can show here in the States,
and also in Eastern Europe
to fortify the link
that was growing between the east countries
and the west.
We started working on it,
and I didn't like at all what was happening to it.
It was turning into a travel log.
And not a very good travel log.
The State Department had the reins.
Definitely had the reins.
They really ran
the making of the film.
I couldn't stand it
because it wasn't anything
what I had envisioned.
When I saw the finished film...
I was personally heartbroken.
I didn't show it, but I was.
I was also quite angry that all of this film that...
we had all worked so hard to get,
wasn't being represented on the screen.
Hmm.
As far as it not coming out, never heard anything.
Got me. It just kind of got shelved.
So, the independent film company
shot 65 hours of footage.
Where it went, I have no idea.
No one knows where it is.
The State Department had the final say
as to the release and distribution.
The fact that
it would reflect poorly on Romania,
on a relationship with that country,
you would make sense
for the Department of State to say,
"Just stick it in a drawer,
and let it cool off."
Maybe the film
was viewed as threatening
to détente with Romania, and...
someone got to someone.
There are a lot of people who had an interest
in that film never seeing the light of day.
My father, Mel Klein, was the executive producer
of the lost Blood, Sweat & Tears documentary.
It was 50 years ago,
but my recollection was that--
and this is my mother's recollection also--
is that the State Department
took all the film, all the audio,
took what they thought was everything,
um, and that was that.
But what's left is one hour.
One hour that was edited for television
that was never shown at all,
and was discovered while you guys were making this film.
♪ What goes up♪
♪ Must come down♪
"What goes up must come down." They went up and they came down.
It's a shame, because the music is great,
but it's more a moment in time than an institution.
♪ Catch a painted pony♪
♪ Let the spinnin' wheel spin♪
♪ You got no money♪
♪ And you got no home♪
♪ Spinnin' wheel Spinnin' all alone♪
♪ Hey, you're talkin' 'Bout your troubles♪
♪ And you never, never learn♪
♪ Catch a painted pony♪
♪ Let the spinnin' wheel turn♪
This was such a promising musical group,
and to have the innovativeness of the musicianship
with the distinctive vocal and energy.
If they had more hit songs and they stayed together,
they could have had enduring success.
I mean, the combination of hits
that they had on the second album
was so special and commanding.
You say, "Spinning Wheel," "You Made Me So Very Happy,"
and "When I Die,"
we can all sing it.
♪ Someone is waiting♪
♪ Just for you♪
♪ Spinnin' wheel, Spinnin' true♪
♪ Drop all your troubles By the riverside♪
♪ Catch a painted pony♪
♪ On the spinnin' wheel ride♪
There's a loaded question.
Well, I don't want it to be remembered as sellouts.
We never were. Okay?
We did what we had to do.
Aside from the fact that we got sucked
into this political maelstrom...
the music was what it was all about in that band.
♪ You made me♪
♪ So very happy♪
♪ You made me so♪
♪ So very happy, baby♪
♪ I'm so glad♪
♪ You came♪
♪ Into my life♪
The memory that I hold closest
is the band itself...
playing so beautifully.
The music so joyful.
The players so good.
No matter where we were...
no matter what concert it was...
that it was absolutely thrilling.
♪ Whoa♪
What happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears, it just wasn't fair.
They really got screwed.
♪ I just wanna thank you, girl♪
♪ Them that's got, shall get♪
♪ Them that's not, shall lose♪
♪ So the Bible says♪
♪ And it still is news♪
♪ 'Cause mama may have♪
♪ And papa may have♪
♪ God bless the child, That's got his own♪
♪ That's got his own♪
♪ Money you got♪
♪ Lots of friends♪
♪ They're hangin' outside of your door♪
♪ But when the money's gone♪
♪ And all that spendin' ends♪
♪ They won't be 'round anymore♪
♪ More♪
♪ Oh, and rich relations♪
♪ May give you♪
♪ A crust of bread and such♪
♪ You can help yourself♪
♪ But don't take too much♪
♪ 'Cause mama may have♪
♪ And papa may have♪
♪ But God bless the child That's got his own♪
♪ Oh, Lord♪
♪ That's got his own♪
♪ Oh, every child♪
♪ In this world♪
♪ Got to have his own♪