What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? (2023) Movie Script

1
[]
[audience cheering]
One, two, three
["Spinning Wheel"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
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
[audience cheering]
[David screams]
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
[]
[audience cheering]
[Tina Cunningham]
Keep in mind, this is the first American rock band
to perform
behind the Iron Curtain.
The very first.
[Jim Fielder] 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."
[]
[Cunningham] They were
responding to this great music.
And this great singer.
They felt this
kind of unleashed freedom.
[crowd chanting "USA"]
[Dan Klein]
They were really excited,
and they didn't really
wanna leave.
The authorities
didn't like that at all.
[Fred Lipsius] 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.
[Klein] We were being followed.
We were being
monitored in every way.
It seemed very much like
a James Bond movie.
[David Clayton-Thomas]
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.
[]
[crowd whistling]
[Tim Naftali]
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.
[crowd chanting]
No more war! No more war!
Peace now! Peace now!
[Naftali]
The divide gets deeper,
and society gets more violent.
[Bobby Colomby]
There was an underlying reason
why we did this tour,
but we couldn't tell anyone.
It was definitely
a quid pro quo.
[Steve Katz]
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."
[Colomby] There's so much more
to this story,
you have no idea.
["Opening Montage And Main
Title" by Blood, Sweat & Tears]
[music fades]
[film reel clicking]
[man]
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.
[band member] Uh, even
if you're not from that country?
[man]
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.
[crowd applauding]
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.
[crowd cheering]
[Danielle Fosler-Lussier]
"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?
[Clayton-Thomas]
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.
[Fosler-Lussier]
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.
[Clayton-Thomas]
He was very radical
and very, very much
into radical politics.
Me, not so much,
I'm Canadian, I don't-- [laughs]
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"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
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.
[Naftali] 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.
[radio host] From Saigon,
this is the American
Forces Vietnam Network.
["And When I Die"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
- [rapid gunshots]
- [explosion booms]
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
[Robert Salerni] 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
[Salerni] 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.
["My Days Are Numbered"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
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.
[Clive David]
Blood, Sweat & Tears
was among those few artists,
they weren't fitting into it.
They were leading the way.
[Wild] 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.
["Lucretia Mac Evil"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
[Clayton-Thomas] There would be
no Blood, Sweat & Tears without Bobby Colomby.
He was the-- the gel
that held it all together.
[Katz]
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.
[Fielder]
Dick Halligan, musical genius.
[Clayton-Thomas]
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.
[Fielder]
Jerry Hyman, great, fun guy.
Always smiling, always joking,
always pulling
your leg about something.
[Colomby] 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."
[Clayton-Thomas] Fred Lipsius,
immensely talented,
extremely
well-educated musician.
[Katz]
Freddy would take a lot of time writing an arrangement,
but they would
always be fantastic,
and they would always
come from his heart.
[Katz] Lew Soloff
was such a great trumpet player.
[Clayton-Thomas]
Blistering lead trumpet player.
Lew would not only nail it,
he'd sting it.
[Colomby]
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.
[Katz] Chuck just played
his part as second trumpet.
I never heard him
play a mistake.
[Colomby] He gave it his all,
was totally fine
doing what he did.
He was a prince.
[Lipsius]
To me, David Clayton-Thomas
was the best
pop singer during our time.
[Fielder]
Powerful, powerful voice.
It seemed like something
from deep inside of him.
[Colomby]
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.
["DCT Arrested"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
[Cunningham]
We're at the airport,
we're ready to leave
on this big tour,
and where's David?
David's not there.
[police siren whoops]
[handcuffs click]
[Clayton-Thomas]
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.
[Martin Wenick] 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.
[Wenick]
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.
[Clayton-Thomas] 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"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
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.
[Wenick] "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.
[Naftali] 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.
[Naftali] And so the Cold War
was an existential struggle
between the United States
and the Soviet Union.
[John F. Kennedy]
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.
[alarm blaring]
[man] 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
Duck and cover
[Colomby] 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.
[Kennedy] 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.
[Fosler-Lussier] 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.
[man] 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.
[Fosler-Lussier] 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.
[Fosler-Lussier]
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"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
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
[Ira Wolfert] 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?
- [trumpet plays off-key]
- Oh, my God.
Play "Roumania, Roumania."
[trumpet playing]
I understand
it's the first time in history that this stadium has sold out.
- [Larry] 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
[screams]
[exclaims]
[]
[audience cheering]
["Telegram"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
Thank you.
[Harry Dunlop] "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."
[soft classical music playing]
[Katz]
So who is Larry Goldblatt?
Can I ask you the same question?
[chuckles]
Where did this guy come from?
[Colomby]
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."
[maniacal laughter]
[Fielder] 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.
[Fielder]
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
[audience applauding]
To carry on
[indistinct]
Thank you. Thank you.
[audience applauding]
[William Leonheart]
"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
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
[chuckles]
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.
[Colomby] 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.
[song ends, sparse applause,
muted conversation]
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...
[Cunningham]
"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."
[upbeat
trumpet instrumental playing]
[thunder rumbles]
[Clayton-Thomas] 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.
[airport announcement]
Mr. Blood, Mr. Sweat, Mr. Tears,
your plane is ready.
[upbeat instrumental playing]
[Colomby] 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.
[Al Cooper] 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
[Fielder] 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.
[Lipsius]
There was nothing like us.
You know, there was no one
doing what we were doing.
[Davis] 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
[Colomby] 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
[Wild] 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.
[upbeat
horn instrumental playing]
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
[Katz] 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.
[Colomby] 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."
[Davis] 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.
[Colomby]
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.
[Clayton-Thomas]
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.
[Colomby]
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..."
[mimicking beat]
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
[Katz] 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
[Katz] 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
Thank you,
baby
[Colomby]
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.
[upbeat instrumental playing]
[Colomby] 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.
[announcer]
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome with us,
Blood, Sweat & Tears.
[Wild] 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
[Clayton-Thomas]
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.
[]
[Wild]
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.
[rock music playing]
[Fielder] You're asking me,
was Blood, Sweat & Tears
on a suicide mission
playing Caesars Palace?
[chuckles] 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'" playing]
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.
[Clayton-Thomas] The crme
de la crme 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.
[Colomby] 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'
[Colomby]
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.
[upbeat
trumpet instrumental playing]
[Wild] 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.
[ominous instrumental playing]
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.
[narrator] 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?
[narrator]
Well, the answer to that was simple enough, everybody.
[Klein] 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.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Paula] Most of the film crew
as well as the band members
have very long hair,
and they are dressed excessively
eccentric and garrulous.
[ominous
piano instrumental playing]
[Colomby] 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. [chuckles]
In one sense
it was very, very laughable,
but in another sense, their
presence was all around us.
[Clayton-Thomas] 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.
[Colomby] 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.
[Lipsius]
I was having breakfast.
I don't remember what I ordered,
but I noticed some--
Like, in a Peter Sellers movie.
[dramatic
orchestral music playing]
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. [laughing]
[narrator]
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.
- [narrator] And maybe we won't.
[Naftali] 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.
[Naftali] 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... [laughs]
[jazz music playing]
[Aurel Mitran]
["Spinning Wheel"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
Someone's waiting
Just for you
Spinning wheel
Spinning through
[Mitran]
Catch a painted pony
Let the spinnin' wheel fly
[audience applauding]
[Godorja]
Hey, everybody, could we
be quiet for one second?
David, David,
can you listen to me, please?
They're gonna want another set.
[audience cheering]
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.
- [man] Come on, let's do it.
- I can't [indistinct].
["I Can't Quit Her"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
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.
[Fosler-Lussier]
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. [chuckles]
That would be a concern.
[audience cheering]
[chanting "USA"]
The kids were jumping up
out of their seats,
yelling, with peace signs
going, "USA, USA, peace, peace."
[audience chanting]
USA, USA, USA, USA.
[Cunningham] I remember seeing
one youngster in the audience
with chains, like this.
[chuckles]
[sighs]
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.
[Cambern] As soon
as the audience started
to really erupt
into all of their happiness,
the soldiers started to move in.
[audience chanting]
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."
[audience booing]
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.
[Colomby] Our man at the embassy
explained to us
that our concert had been termed
by the Romanian government
as too successful.
[embassy representative]
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.
[Fosler-Lussier]
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.
[Naftali] 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."
[embassy representative]
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.
[Fosler-Lussier] 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.
[Clayton-Thomas]
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."
[singing]
That was just part of our show.
We've been doing it
like that way for a year.
["Smiling Phases"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
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?
- [all laughing]
- Not enough jazz.
Can I tell them
that you will remember
what we discussed here?
- You listening, Bobby?
- [Colomby] 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.
[Fielder] 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?
- [Colomby] Without dancing--
- No, wait, no.
No, because you can't--
Dan you--
If he gets into it,
you can't guarantee that.
[Colomby]
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.
[Katz] 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.
[audience cheering]
[Ion Dimandi]
["Something's Coming On"
playing]
Something coming on
Don't know what it is
But it's getting stronger
[Cambern] 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
[Clayton-Thomas]
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."
["Smiling Phases"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears playing]
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
[Katz] 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.
[audience cheering]
Come on, guys, let's go. Steven.
Let's go out
and take a bow, okay?
Let's take a bow. Come on. No?
- [embassy representative]
Don't play. Don't play. No. - [Katz] No?
Get David in here.
Get David in here.
David is out. David, come back.
[Fielder]
The kids weren't gonna leave,
and it was just yelling
and-- and singing
and just having a great time
getting real rowdy.
[Clayton-Thomas]
Rand, I'm excited. I wanna play for those kids.
One more song
won't make a difference.
- [indistinct]
- 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.
- [whistle blowing]
- [audience screaming]
[Clayton-Thomas]
You see those dogs going into the crowd?
The kids ran through a plate
glass window in the back.
- [indistinct]
- [embassy representative] True, they broke it.
They-- they stood there
and broke the window,
lit a fire.
[Clayton-Thomas] 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.
[Fielder] 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.
[dramatic music playing]
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.
- [screaming]
- [dogs barking]
[Naftali] 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.
[audience whistling]
[secret informant Damian]
"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.
[Cambern] 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."
[laughs]
[Irene Carstones]
"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.
[speaking in Polish]
[Clayton-Thomas] 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
[audience cheering]
[Katz]
The audiences were fantastic.
The reason is they were really
starved for this kind of music.
They just
really were warm to us.
["Sometimes in Winter" playing]
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.
[journalist] 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
[audience applauding]
[Katz]
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.
[audience applauding]
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.
[Casey Kasem] 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.
[reporter] I'll just introduce,
um, everybody to you.
David Clayton-Thomas,
Bobby Colomby and Steve Katz.
[Colomby] When we came back,
we were blindsided by a--
uh, a press conference.
[reporter] What'd they
tell you about America?
About inside the Iron Curtain?
[Katz] 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.
[reporter 1] How does it
make you feel about America now?
[Bobby] 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."
[reporter 2]
What made you decide to go?
[Katz]
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.
[reporter 3]
What's your response to the State Department--
[Katz] I just wanted to
get that in.
[David] 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.
[reporter 4]
Did the State Department put any restrictions...
- [David] 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.
[Tim] 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.
[Bobby] 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.
[Don] "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.
[laughing]
[audience clapping rhythmically]
[David] One, two, three, four.
["Hi-De-Ho
[That Old Sweet Roll]" 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."
[Tim] 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?
[Katz] "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."
[Jim] "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.
["Something Comin' On"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears]
Rolling up my spine
Turning on the things
that'd never been turned on
Talk about the woman
Good god
[Bobby] Madison Square Garden.
We're playing "Something's
Coming On," it goes like this.
Somethin' comin' on
[imitates horn line]
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."
[upbeat jazz plays]
They were quickly ushered out,
but it left a... [chuckles]
...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.
[Katz] 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.
[military percussion
music plays]
[Rep. William J. Scherle]
"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.
- [interviewer] 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.
[Tim] 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.
[Henry Kissinger] "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.
[Nixon]
"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.
[somber piano music plays]
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.
[Bobby] So, apparently,
Larry Goldblatt had figured out a way,
being Larry,
to get his green card back.
[Tina] 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...
[]
["Fire and Rain"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears]
Just yesterday morning
They let me know
You were gone
[Cambern] 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
[Edward Alexander] "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."
[Mark B. Lewis] "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."
[Cambern] 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.
[Bobby] So,
the independent film company
shot 65 hours of footage.
Where it went, I have no idea.
No one knows where it is.
[Tina] 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 dtente 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.
[Dan] 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.
[Bobby]
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.
[]
["Spinning Wheel"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears]
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
[chuckles]
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"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears]
You made me
So very happy
You made me so
So very happy, baby
I'm so glad
You came
Into my life
[sighs]
[Cambern] 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
[audience cheering]
[Romanian crowd chanting "USA"]
["God Bless the Child"
by Blood, Sweat & Tears]
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
[indistinct lyrics]
[audience cheering]