SPINNING WHEEL: WHAT GOES UP, MUST COME DOWN
….”WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS?” — A REVIEW
Some time ago, talk-radio legend–writer–critic–and friend Paul Harris recommended a 2023 film and music documentary to me. The title was/is….What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?
My reaction was something like, “yeah Paul, what the hell did ever happen to the band Blood, Sweat & Tears?” Weren’t they once an immensely successful rock group that just suddenly seemed to vanish?
Well, yes….and no.
Blood, Sweat & Tears was popular slightly before my time. They were a rock-jazz fusion group with lots of horn-based songs — much like Chicago with a similar style and sound which also debuted in the late 60s. The group released several mixed-genre albums that become massively successful, spawning several top-ten singles. Most of us would instantly recognize many of their hit songs. “Spinning Wheel” immediately comes to mind. Their best-selling single reaching #1 was “You Make Me So Very Happy.”
How big were they? In 1969, arguably the greatest year in pop music history, Blood, Sweat & Tears won the most coveted Grammy of all for “Album of the Year,” besting the Beatles (for Abbey Road), Johnny Cash (for At San Quentin), Crosby Stills and Nash, and the 5th Dimension. They were huge, both as studio artists and live performers.
But as big as they exploded in popularity, the harder they crashed and fell. And even though we still hear their music today, they’ve mostly been forgotten. The question is — why? This film, directed by John Scheinfeld (best known for The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Chasing Trane, Who is Harry Nilsson…?) documents the bizarre reasons for the band’s rapid decline in popularity and ultimate downfall.
The demise began so innocently. Incredibly, Blood, Sweat & Tears was pitched to take on the unprecedented role of musical ambassadors on behalf of — now Hi-De-Ho, get this — the United States government. They reluctantly but willfully became de facto frontmen of a pseudo-diplomatic mission. BS&T would become the first major American band ever to tour behind the Iron Curtain. The idea seemed simple enough: The band was to play a series of live shows inside multiple communist countries. Playing to audiences that had never seen, and in some cases not heard rock-jazz music before, seemed both courageous and even a little crazy.
Having lived in a Communist nation, and once assigned to the repressive country where much of the disastrous Eastern European rock tour took place, hearing about this new film I felt a strong personal connection to the subject matter. While the events depicted happened long ago in the summer of 1970, two decades later when I resided there (1989-1991), conditions in Ceausescu’s Romania were very much the same — and in some ways were worse. So, yeah — I had to find this movie and watch it. Fortunately, it just popped up on Amazon Prime this week, where it’s now available.
Prior to Paul Harris’ recommendation, I knew nothing of this infamous tour. I had no idea that a major American rock band had toured and played in Romania. Even the idea of this seemed preposterous. After all, attitudes about rock and pop music were often openly hostile, which was viewed as anti-social, rebellious, and even potentially disruptive. Communists weren’t alone in this perception and fear. Most Americans over the age of 30 hated rock music, particularly members of the establishment — and there aren’t many powerful entities affixed to the establishment more solidly than the U.S. State Department.
Then again, politics makes for strange bedfellows, especially on the global stage. This not-so-subtle initiative using pop-culture as artful persuasion instigated at the apex of the Cold War –when East and West were at war in Vietnam and the superpowers could blow up the world a hundred times over with nuclear weapons on high alert– was remarkably forward-thinking. It was even a bit of a shock given the idea originated within the Nixon Administration. President Nixon and Republicans were often the bludgeoned targets of America’s counterculture. This Eastern European rock tour came before any Detente agreements were signed with the Soviet Union, and just prior to the United States recognizing “Red China.” The initiative was designed to showcase democracy’s superiority over authoritarianism. It was both bold and creative, but also tragically doomed from the very start.
According to plan, Blood, Sweat & Tears’ tour was to include 11 live shows over 26 days. Three were cancelled at the last minute for assorted reasons no one could possibly foresee. The band was tailed by a film crew (footage gathered was used in the film) and often accompanied by various diplomatic flunkies. Their assignment was to make sure no illegal drugs or wild flings with teenage girls or other incidents happened that might become embarrassing to the mission that was purportedly intended to improve diplomatic relations. The band visited three countries — including Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland. No one — not the band, not the film crew, nor the governments on both sides of the political and philosophical divide — knew what to expect.
The film documents their experience, which includes several shocking surprises. Perhaps the biggest surprise was how remarkably different cities and audiences reacted to each concert, despite most shows being nearly identical. The first tour stop, Yugoslavia seemed like a perfect beachhead for an American rock band. Its leader Tito was known as the “maverick” communist. However, the crowd in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (Croatia) — became openly hostile. The music was so shocking at the time, the audience became disruptive.
However, BS&T received an entirely opposite reaction in Constanta, Romania (on the Black Sea Coast). The crowd became so rowdy that Romanian Army soldiers with attack dogs were called in to police the arena and “restore order.” Communist Party authorities were appalled by the performance and at one point afterward ask them to tone down the rock content, and replace it with jazz. Puzzled by this baffling request, the group’s drummer Bobby Columby retorts, “Do you have a jazz meter here?”
As diverse as the audiences were over in Eastern Europe, with varied reactions to the bands’ radically unorthodox look and sound, BS&T’s devoted record-buyers back in the United States were repulsed and outraged by a major rock group cozying up to officials in the Nixon Administration, wittingly becoming PR puppets of American foreign policy. While fans of the group were burning draft cards and protesting outside the Pentagon, BS&T was overseas shilling for the evil establishment.
Predictably, disaster would soon follow:
“The ‘don’t trust anyone over 30’ crowd was already wondering if BS&T was ‘one of us’ after they played at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas in 1969. That alone was just cause for having their ‘hip cards’ revoked. Yippee Abbie Hoffman was so offended that the group was now glad for living in the USA, that outside of a Madison Square Garden show, he led a chant of ‘Blood, sweat, and bullshit!’ and set fire to a pile of cow dung.” (source here)
Record sales crashed. Some members of the group left. And while BS&S continued to release later recordings and performed live, the hybrid reconstituted group many times over never recovered from the infamous 1970 Eastern Europe tour and fallout.
Blood, Sweat & Tears’ self-sacrifice and dissolution may have been a tragic disappointment and ultimate defeat. However, the seeds of that fateful tour and experience would eventually blossom into something much bigger and greater. Let’s remember the revolutions of 1989 that spread all across Eastern Europe some twenty years after those concerts were sparked primarily by students and young people — the children of those who saw those shows a generation earlier. The Cold War wasn’t “won” by Ronald Reagan and massive defense budgets. It was won in the hearts and minds and souls of those who wanted Coca-Cola, blue jeans, and rock n’ roll.
It just took a little Blood, Sweat & Tears to get the revolutions rolling.
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