David Clayton-Thomas, lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears, dies at 84

David Clayton-Thomas, the Grammy Award-winning lead singer for “Blood, Sweat & Tears” whose hits like “Spinning Wheel,” “And When I Die” and “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” died on Wednesday, his publicist said. He was 84.

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Eric Alper confirmed that the singer died at a Toronto hospital but did not provide a cause, The New York Times reported.

The group’s three biggest hits all reached No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 charts in 1969.

“You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” peaked on April 12, 1969, followed by “Spinning Wheel” (July 5) and “And When I Die” (Nov. 29). Each song spent 13 weeks in the Hot 100.

Clayton-Thomas was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He achieved a special Juno recognizing his contributions to Canadian culture and has a star on the country’s Walk of Fame, Rolling Stone reported.

“Spinning Wheel” was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1997.

“I wrote ‘Spinning Wheel’ while living in an upstairs apartment in Willowdale where the neighbors would bang on the walls if I made too much noise,” Clayton-Thomas recalled. “The basis of the song was written in only 15 minutes on guitar.”

Clayton-Thomas joined Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1968, shortly after it formed, the Times reported. A self-taught music with a bluesy tenor, he stood out in the group’s nine-member lineup, made up mostly of jazz and conservatory-trained musicians, according to the newspaper.

Clayton-Thomas’ first album with the band, “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” (1968), was a No. 1 hit for seven weeks during 1969 and sold more than 4 million copies, according to Rolling Stone.

In 1970, the album won the Album of the Year Grammy Award, besting the Beatles’ “Abbey Road,” Johnny Cash’s “Live at San Quentin” and Crosby, Stills and Nash’s self-titled debut, the magazine reported.

The band’s next album, “Blood, Sweat & Tears 3″ (1970), also hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart, going gold thanks on the strength of the singles “Hi-De-Ho,” which peaked at No. 14; and the Clayton-Thomas–written “Lucretia MacEvil” which reached No. 29.

Many fans of the band were angered in 1970 when it became the first North American rock band to play behind the Iron Curtain, the Times reported. The tour included stops in Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland, according to the newspaper.

That tour was the focus of a 2023 documentary, “What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?”

“We went over there with the idea of just how much so-called Communist fascism is American propaganda,” Clayton-Thomas told Rolling Stone in 1970. “And I found that the propaganda is pretty damn close to the truth. It’s scary.”

The singer was born David Henry Thomsett in Surrey, England, on Sept. 13, 1941, Rolling Stone reported. He grew up in a Toronto suburb and became homeless as a teenager when his relationship with his father fractured. According to legend, the musician found a discarded guitar while incarcerated and taught himself how to play, the magazine reported.

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