Blood, Sweat & Tears – Bloodlines (+ Booklet)

Bloodlines gathers the early Blood, Sweat & Tears catalogue into a box that makes the band’s changes visible as one continuous story. The debut begins with Al Kooper’s restless mixture of songcraft, brass, blues and studio arrangement. The next three albums centre David Clayton-Thomas’s powerful voice within a group increasingly able to make horns function like a rock rhythm instrument or a jazz ensemble, depending on the song.

“I Can’t Quit Her” joins an immediate melody to brass writing that keeps altering the emotional pressure. “God Bless the Child” shows the first lineup engaging jazz and blues repertoire at greater length. On the self-titled album, “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” gives Clayton-Thomas room to move from intimate verse to full ensemble release. Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 adds “Lucretia MacEvil,” whose riff and horn punctuation create a tougher character, while B, S & T 4 opens with the driving “Go Down Gamblin’.” Taken together, the albums reveal reinvention within a recognisable horn-band identity.

This is a 33⅓ RPM boxed edition with a booklet. The set suits collectors who want the group’s formative arc and changing personnel gathered in one physical presentation. Heard as complete albums, the familiar songs regain their place inside a much more varied and ambitious body of work. The booklet accompanies a sequence that rewards moving chronologically from Kooper’s debut vision into the later band’s increasingly confident synthesis. Michael 45 holds the box in Germany and dispatches it from Hilden, eliminating the need for a personal import from the United States and the associated customs wait.

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