What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? is an extraordinary new documentary, produced and directed by John Scheinfeld (Who Is Harry Nilsson-And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?, The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Herb Alpert Is…) that chronicles the historic saga of one of the first American rock and roll bands to play behind the Iron Curtain. The story is remarkable and in many ways almost unbelievable, drawing in then President Richard Nixon, the U.S. State Department alongside a level of chaos, blackmail and intrigue worthy of a James Bond film. In this new gripping documentary, the heretofore unknown back story, is exhaustively documented with gripping footage shot on and offstage in Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland. The accompanying soundtrack album, What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? – Original Soundtrack (Omnivore Records) includes a previously unreleased live show capturing the band at the peak of their live prowess, plus a digital-only new score penned by founding member Bobby Colomby and multi-instrumentalist David Mann. Join us for a conversation with bandleader and BST drummer Bobby Colomby for a fascinating look at their journey behind the Iron Curtain.
GOLDMINE: It’s 1970. What was the state of Blood, Sweat & Tears in terms of your career?
BOBBY COLOMBY: I look back in one year, there’s 10,000 events, and then the next year another 10,000 events, and now I look at my life and go, What did I do last year? I didn’t do anything. It’s amazing how many things hit you at once.
You know when things do because it just accelerates. I had no idea of the success of the band. When you’re in it, you don’t know. You’re just saying, “Where are we playing?” and then I became bandleader, so I had other things that I had to worry about — relationships, management and the whole deal. So the state of the band depends on when in 1970.
GM: Right before you toured Eastern Europe.
We were a very successful band. We were peaking. The first album came out [in] ’68. Our second album, it’s a different band. Let me digress. To me, Blood, Sweat & Tears are like the Yankees. When you go to see the Yankees, you do not expect to see Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle or Lou Gehrig. You go because it’s your home team. You go because they have a style of play that you like. Blood, Sweat & Tears is a concept of trying to take songs [and] maximizing the potential with arrangements of those songs with the band that we have, so that concept can live on forever. The most successful band was our second band, wasn’t our first band, and we’ve had many iterations of this band since. So when someone says, “It’s not the original band,” the guys today are 10 times better than we were. The drummer today is Dylan Elise. Do you think I ever could play it like that? I mean, there’s some serious great musicians in the band now. And that’s my job; I curate the best musicians. There was a time in ’73, with the rhythm section, I was playing probably the best that I ever played in my life. Jaco (Pastorius) was the bass player, Mike Stern was the guitar player, Larry Willis was the pianist, and Don Alias was the percussionist. That’s a hell of a rhythm section. Playing “Spinning Wheel” wasn’t something we looked forward to doing. The breaks between is what we looked forward to doing. But when you’re a jazz-oriented musician, you’re always thinking, It was very tough to keep the great players in your band because they don’t want to play “Spinning Wheel” and “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy.” They’re great songs for the time, but as time goes on, they change. For example, “God Bless the Child” is one of my favorite things we record because then the songs realize their potential as you’re playing them through your own reaction, the audience reaction and then you figure out what key, what tempo works best. So [when] we recorded [“God Bless the Child”], the band was really good live. The band was great and I couldn’t wait to go out and play live because it was like we were going to the track knowing exactly what horse was going to win every single race. So we’d go out and I’d know when I’d start playing more and more, I would look out in the audience and people would get excited. I was used to hearing bands live that were better than the records; usually it’d be the other way around.