Back in 2020, we reported that a documentary on Blood, Sweat and Tears was in the works, and three years later, it's done.
What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? was directed by John Scheinfeld, who has done films on John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Herb Alpert, and comedy writer and director Garry Marshall.
Made with the full cooperation of the band, it features never-before-seen footage and photos, as well as present day interviews with five of the nine band members -- singer David Clayton-Thomas, sax player and arranger Fred Lipsius, bass player Jim Fielder, guitarist Steve Katz, and drummer and band leader Bobby Colomby.
Al Kooper, who put the band together in 1967 and left after the first album and their rise to superstardom, tells us he doesn't recall being asked to participate. This is not surprising given his tempestuous relationship with Colomby.
As the trailer explains, one of the plot lines is the tour they did for the State Department of Eastern European countries -- Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland -- in the spring of 1970. In the clip, Steve Katz says they did it because they were "blackmailed" and leaves you hanging until you see the film.
Spoiler alert -- While they couldn't reveal the truth behind the tour then, Katz wrote about it in his 2015 memoir, Blood, Sweat, and My Rock 'n' Roll Years: Is Steve Katz a Rock Star?
That was one of three things they did that they lived to regret. The second one was playing Las Vegas way before it was fashionable for rock bands to do so, which Katz says was like "selling out to the underground." And the third mistake was not working with producer Jim Guercio [pr: GUR-see-oh] for their third album after he produced their 1968 self-titled second album, which spawned three Top 10 hits -- "You've Made Me So Very Happy," "Spinning Wheel," "And When I Die" -- won the Grammy for Album of the Year, and has been certified four-times platinum.
What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? will open in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on March 24th, before being released elsewhere and in additional formats.
The film’s soundtrack, featuring 10 recently discovered and remastered live performances from the Iron Curtain tour, will be released on CD and digitally on April 21st. Also out that day is the digital-only release of What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? – Original Score, composed by Bobby Colomby.