British-Canadian musician
David Clayton-Thomas
|
---|
Clayton-Thomas performing at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Florida
|
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Birth name
| David Henry Thomsett
|
---|
Born
| (
1941-09-13
)
13 September 1941
(age 82)
Kingston upon Thames
,
Surrey
, England
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Genres
| R&B
, rock,
funk
, pop, jazz
|
---|
Occupation(s)
| Singer, musician, songwriter, record producer
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---|
Instrument(s)
| Vocals, guitar
|
---|
Years active
| Early 1960s?present
|
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|
Website
| davidclaytonthomas
.com
|
---|
Musical artist
David Clayton-Thomas
(born
David Henry Thomsett
; 13 September 1941) is a Grammy Award-winning Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the U. S. band
Blood, Sweat & Tears
. Clayton-Thomas has been inducted into the
Canadian Music Hall of Fame
and in 2007 his jazz/rock composition "
Spinning Wheel
" was enshrined in the
Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame
. In 2010, Clayton-Thomas received his star on
Canada's Walk of Fame
.
Clayton-Thomas began his music career in the early 1960s, working the clubs on
Toronto
's Yonge Street, where he discovered his love of singing and playing the blues. Before moving to
New York City
in 1967, Clayton-Thomas fronted a couple of local bands, first The Shays and then The Bossmen, one of the earliest rock bands with significant jazz influences. But the real success came only a few difficult years later when he joined
Blood, Sweat & Tears
.
Early life
[
edit
]
Clayton-Thomas was born in
Kingston upon Thames
,
Surrey
, England, the son of Fred Thomsett, a decorated Canadian soldier of
World War II
. Clayton-Thomas's mother, Freda May (nee Smith), played the piano and met Thomsett when she came to entertain the troops at a
London
hospital. After the war, the family settled in
Willowdale, Toronto
. From the beginning, Clayton-Thomas and his father had a troubled relationship. By the time Clayton-Thomas was fourteen, he had left home and was sleeping in parked cars and abandoned buildings and stealing food and clothing to survive. He was arrested several times for vagrancy, petty theft, and street brawls and spent his teen years bouncing in and out of various jails and reformatories, including the
Burwash Industrial Farm
.
[1]
Early career
[
edit
]
He inherited a love for music from his mother, and when an old guitar came into his possession, left behind by an outgoing inmate, he began to teach himself to play. Upon his release from detention in 1962, he gravitated to the
Yonge Street
"strip" in Toronto.
Rhythm & blues
migrating up from
Detroit
and
Chicago
was the music of choice on the strip, and Arkansas
rockabilly
pioneer
Ronnie Hawkins
recognized the formidable talent of the young 'Sonny' Thomas and took him under his wing. It wasn't long before he was fronting his own bands. The first was called David Clayton Thomas and The Fabulous Shays. By this time, he had changed his surname to put some distance between his new life and his troubled teenage years.
In 1964 Clayton-Thomas and The Shays recorded a rendition of
John Lee Hooker
's "
Boom Boom
". This led to a New York engagement for the Shays on
NBC-TV
's
Hullabaloo
at the invitation of its host, fellow Canadian
Paul Anka
. Abandoning the bars on the strip, Clayton-Thomas began performing in
Yorkville Village
's coffeehouses. He immersed himself in the local jazz & blues scene dominated by the likes of
John Lee Hooker
,
Joe Williams
,
Sonny Terry
and
Brownie McGhee
,
Lenny Breau
,
Oscar Peterson
, and
Moe Koffman
. The album
David Clayton Thomas and the Shays a Go-Go
was recorded for
Roman Records
in 1965, and was followed by
David Clayton Thomas Sings Like It Is!
for the same label in 1966. Clayton-Thomas made his mark more forcibly with his next band, The Bossmen, one of the first rock bands anywhere to include jazz musicians. In 1966 he wrote and performed the R&B-driven anti-war song "Brainwashed", which became a major Canadian hit, peaking at No. 11 on the national RPM chart.
One night in 1966 after "sitting in" with blues singer John Lee Hooker in Yorkville, Clayton-Thomas left with him for New York. They played a
Greenwich Village
club for a couple of weeks; Hooker then left for Europe and Clayton-Thomas stayed on in New York City. He survived by playing "basket houses", where performers were given a few minutes of stage time and then passed the basket.
Blood Sweat & Tears peak years
[
edit
]
Folk singer
Judy Collins
heard Clayton-Thomas one night at a club uptown and told her friend, drummer
Bobby Colomby
, about him. Bobby's band, Blood Sweat & Tears, had broken up four months after releasing its debut Columbia album,
Child Is Father to the Man
. Colomby was impressed with Clayton-Thomas's vocal talent and he invited him to join the band. They took the reformed group into the
Cafe Au Go-Go
in the Village.
In his 1974 autobiography,
Clive: Inside the Record Business
,
Clive Davis
, then president of
Columbia Records
, described his initial impression of Clayton-Thomas singing at the Cafe Au Go-Go:
He was staggering... a powerfully built singer who exuded an enormous earthy confidence. He jumped right out at you. I went with a small group of people, and we were electrified. He seemed so genuine, so in command of the lyric... a perfect combination of fire and emotion to go with the band’s somewhat cerebral appeal. I knew he would be a strong, strong figure.
[
citation needed
]
Clayton-Thomas's first album with the band,
Blood, Sweat & Tears
(which was released in December 1968) ? despite being self-titled, it was actually the band's second album ? sold ten million copies worldwide. The record topped the Billboard album chart for seven weeks and charted for 109 weeks. It won five
Grammy Awards
, including Album of the Year and Best Performance by a Male Vocalist. It featured three hit singles, "
You've Made Me So Very Happy
", "
Spinning Wheel
", and "
And When I Die
" (on the Hot 100, each peaked at No. 2 and lasted 13 weeks) as well as a rendition of
Billie Holiday
's "
God Bless The Child
".
[2]
(Seeking to capitalize on the newfound fame of the singer, in 1969
Decca Records
purchased the master tapes of the blues-oriented Roman Records material, dubbed in horns to make it sound more like Blood, Sweat & Tears, and released the album
David Clayton-Thomas!
[3]
)
With Clayton-Thomas fronting the band, Blood, Sweat & Tears continued with a string of hit albums, including
Blood, Sweat & Tears 3
which featured
Carole King
's "Hi-De-Ho" and Clayton-Thomas's "Lucretia MacEvil", and
Blood, Sweat & Tears 4
, which yielded another Clayton-Thomas-penned hit single, "Go Down Gamblin'" and "Lisa Listen to Me".
Blood Sweat & Tears' Greatest Hits
album has to date reportedly chalked up over seven million copies in worldwide sales.
[
citation needed
]
Blood, Sweat & Tears headlined at major venues around the world: the
Royal Albert Hall
, the
Metropolitan Opera House
, the
Hollywood Bowl
,
Madison Square Garden
, and
Caesar's Palace
, as well as the
Newport Jazz Festival
and
Woodstock
. It was the first contemporary band to break through the Iron Curtain with its historic
United States Department of State
-sponsored tour of Eastern Europe in May and June 1970). In the early years Clayton-Thomas lived on the road, travelling all over Europe, Australia, Asia, South America, the US, and Canada with Blood, Sweat & Tears.
The constant touring began to take its toll. Clayton-Thomas left the band in 1972, exhausted by life on the road. By the mid '70s, the founding members began to drift away to start families and pursue their own musical ambitions.
Subsequent career
[
edit
]
In 1972 Thomas released his first Columbia solo album after Blood, Sweat & Tears, simply titled
David Clayton Thomas
. In 1973 the second solo album
Tequila Sunrise
was issued by Columbia. In 1974 he issued the
Harmony Junction
album on RCA. In 1975 Thomas returned to front Blood, Sweat & Tears again on the Columbia albums
New City
and, in 1976,
More Than Ever
. In 1977 they released
Brand New Day
on the ABC label. In 1978 Thomas issued another solo album on ABC, titled simply
Clayton
. In 1980 Blood, Sweat & Tears issued the MCA album
Nuclear Blues
, which also included Thomas. Later in the decade Columbia issued the double live Blood, Sweat & Tears album
Live And Improvised
again with Thomas. In 2004, Clayton-Thomas left New York for Toronto and launched an All-Star 10-piece band. Since then, he has toured and recorded almost a dozen albums under his own name.
Discography
[
edit
]
Albums
[
edit
]
Year
|
Album Title
|
Record Label
|
1965
|
David Clayton Thomas and the Shays a Go-Go
|
Roman
|
1966
|
David Clayton Thomas Sings Like It Is!
|
Roman
|
1969
|
David Clayton-Thomas!
|
Decca
|
1972
|
David Clayton-Thomas
|
Columbia
|
1972
|
Tequila Sunrise
|
Columbia
|
1973
|
David Clayton-Thomas
(
Harmony Junction
)
|
RCA
|
1977
|
Clayton
|
ABC Music
|
1996
|
Blue Plate Special
|
DCT
|
1999
|
Bloodlines
|
DCT
|
2001
|
The Christmas Album
|
Fontana North / Maplecore
|
2005
|
Aurora
|
Justin Time
|
2006
|
In Concert: A Musical Biography
|
Justin Time
|
2008
|
The Evergreens
|
Fontana North / Maplecore
|
2009
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Spectrum
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2010
|
Soul Ballads
|
Fuel
|
2013
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A Blues for the New World
|
Antoinette
|
2015
|
Combo
|
Audio & Video Labs, Inc.
|
2016
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Canadiana
|
Antoinette / Ils / Universal
|
2018
|
Mobius
|
Ils
|
2019
|
Say Somethin'
|
Antoinette
|
Singles
[
edit
]
- 'Boom Boom' No. 16 July 27, 1964 CHUM
[4]
- 'Walk That Walk' No. 3 April 1965 CAN
[5]
/No. 28 CHUM
[6]
- 'Take Me Back' No. 39 June 28, 1965 CHUM
[7]
- 'Out of the Sunshine' No. 31 CAN
[8]
/No. 32 September 13, 1965 CHUM
[9]
- 'Brainwashed' No. 11 July 1966 CAN
[10]
/No. 6 CHUM
[11]
- 'Sing A Song' No. 53 May 1972 CAN
[12]
- 'Magnificent Sanctuary Band' No. 56 June 1972 CAN
[13]
- 'Anytime...Babe' No. 91 July 1974 CAN
[14]
See also
[
edit
]
Sources
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Clayton-Thomas, David (June 2010).
Blood, Sweat and Tears
, Penguin Canada;
ISBN
978-0-14-317599-5
- ^
David Clayton-Thomas
interviewed on the
Pop Chronicles
(1970)
- ^
"Early Thomas Tapes Issued"
.
Billboard
. 6 September 1969. p. 99.
- ^
"CHUM Hit Parade - July 27, 1964"
.
- ^
"RPM Play Sheet - May 17, 1965"
(PDF)
.
- ^
"CHUM Hit Parade - April 3, 1965"
.
- ^
"CHUM Hit Parade - June 28, 1965"
.
- ^
"RPM Play Sheet - September 27, 1965"
(PDF)
.
- ^
"CHUM Hit Parade - September 13, 1965"
.
- ^
"RPM Top 100 - August 8, 1966"
(PDF)
.
- ^
"CHUM Hit Parade - July 18, 1966"
.
- ^
"RPM Top 100 - May 6, 1972"
(PDF)
.
- ^
"RPM Top 100 - June 10, 1972"
(PDF)
.
- ^
"RPM Top 100 - July 27, 1974"
(PDF)
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
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- Dave Gellis
- Glenn McClelland
- Jon Ossman
- Carl Fischer
- Barry Danielian
- Charley Gordon
- Ken Gioffre
- Joel Rosenblatt
- Bo Bice
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Studio albums
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Live albums
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Compilation albums
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Soundtracks
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Singles
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1978-1990
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1990-2000
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2001-2010
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2011-2020
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2021-2030
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1950s
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1960s
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1970s
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1980s
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1990s
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2000s
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2010s
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2020s
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International
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National
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Artists
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