An ex-member of the Blues Project, Kooper had been toying with the notion, growing out of his admiration for jazz bandleader Maynard Ferguson, of forming an electric rock band that would include horns and use jazz as the basis for their work. Blood, Sweat & Tears started as an idea conceived by Al Kooper in July of 1967. From their origins as a jazz-rock experiment that wowed critics and listeners, they went on - in a somewhat more pop vein - to sell almost six million records in three years, but ended up being dropped by their record label four years after that. It was a repertoire to build a career on, and Blood, Sweat & Tears did exactly that, although they never came close to equaling this album.No American rock group ever started with as much daring or musical promise as Blood, Sweat & Tears, or realized their potential more fully - and then blew it all as quickly. Not only did the album contain three songs that neared the top of the charts as singles - 'Happy,' 'Spinning Wheel,' and 'And When I Die' - but the whole album, including an arrangement of 'God Bless the Child' and the radical rewrite of Traffic's 'Smiling Phases,' was wonderfully accessible. Kooper was even still present as an arranger on two tracks, notably the initial hit 'You've Made Me So Very Happy.' But the second BS&T, under the aegis of producer James William Guercio, was a less adventurous unit, and, as fronted by Clayton-Thomas, a far more commercial one.

They had certain similarities to the original: the musical mixture of classical, jazz, and rock elements was still apparent, and the interplay between the horns and the keyboards was still occurring, even if those instruments were being played by different people. Arguably, the Blood, Sweat & Tears that made this self-titled second album - consisting of five of the eight original members and four newcomers, including singer David Clayton-Thomas - was really a different group from the one that made Child Is Father to the Man, which was done largely under the direction of singer/songwriter/keyboard player/arranger Al Kooper. The difference between Blood, Sweat & Tears and the group's preceding long-player, Child Is Father to the Man, is the difference between a monumental seller and a record that was 'merely' a huge critical success.

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