AIRPORT_ANNOUNCEMENT AL_COOPER ANDY_WILLIAMS ASSISTANT_SECRETRAY_RICHARDSON AUREL AUREL_MITRAN BAD_GUY BAND_MEMBER BOBBY_COLOMBY BOBBY_COLOMBY_called BRIEFING BST_concerts_well BULLWINKLE CASEY_KASEM_It_looks_like_Rock_and_Roll_music_is_getting_into_the_Cold CLIVE_DAVIS DANIELLE_FOSLER_LUSSIER DAN_KLEIN DAVID_CLAYTON DAVID_CLAYTON_THOMAS DAVID_FELTON DAVID_WILD DIZZY_GILLEPSIE DONN DONN_CAMBERN DON_HECKMAN DORU FRED_LIPSIUS HENRY_KISSINGER INTERVIEWER ION IRA_WOLFERT JACK_KELLY JAN JIM_FIELDER JOHN KRZYSZTOF LARRY LARRY_GOLDBLATT LEW_SOLOFF LEW_SOLOFF_was_such_a_great_trumpet MARTIN_WENICK MIKE MIRCEA NARRATOR POLISH_OFFICIAL PRESS REPORTER RICHARD RICHARD_NIXON ROBERT_SALERNI ROCKY ROMANIAN_EMBASSY_REP ROMANIAN_EMBASSY_REPRESENTATIVE SECRET_INFORMANT STEVE_KATZ STEVE_KATZ_was_a_very_close_friend_of TIM_NAFTALI TINA_CUNNINGHAM VIETNAM_NETWORK_DJ WILLIAM_LEONHEART WINSTON_CHURCHILL

TINA CUNNINGHAM
Keep in mind, this is the first American rock band to perform behind the iron curtain. The very first. 

JIM FIELDER
I don’t think any of us knew enough about that part of the world to even have any expectations. It was just, here we go. 


TINA CUNNINGHAM
They were responding to this great music. It was a great singer. They felt this kind of unleashed freedom. 


DAN KLEIN
They were really excited, and they didn’t really wanna leave. The authorities didn’t like that at all. 


FRED LIPSIUS
We were about to come on for an encore, but one of the wives came back, she was almost crying. “Oh, they’re sending the dogs out into the audience” German Shepherd, you know, to disperse everybody, ‘cause we had gotten people too excited. 

DAN KLEIN
We were being followed. We were being monitored in every way... It seemed very much like a James Bond movie. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
We’re just musicians, man. We just went to play some music for people. We were the number one band in the world, and it turned into this huge political rat’s nest. 


TIM NAFTALI
The 1968 election showed that this country was pot that was on the stove, and it’s already starting to boil. RICHARD NIXON wins the 1968 election, because he promises to get American out of the Vietnam war. Nixon instead escalates the war. 


TIM NAFTALI
The divide gets deeper, and society gets move violent. 
 

BOBBY COLOMBY
There was an underlying reason why we did this tour, but we couldn’t tell anyone. 

TINA CUNNINGHAM
It was definitely a quid pro quo. 

STEVE KATZ
We were blackmailed. 


STEVE KATZ
I was so frustrated that I couldn’t say “We had to do this, or we wouldn’t of had a band.”

BOBBY COLOMBY
There’s so much more to this story, you have no idea. 









BRIEFING
Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland. That’s where you’re going, gentlemen and this film has been prepared to give you a short briefing on what to expect. First of all you’re honored guests so just act accordingly. Don’t go wandering off by yourself, and make sure your State Department companion knows your whereabouts at all times. The police and military can be very helpful, but under no circumstances are you permitted to take pictures of them, nor any military installations or airports. Just abide by the rules. Speaking of rules, Romania recently passed a restriction prohibiting long hair. 

BAND MEMBER
Uh, even if you’re not from that country?

BRIEFING
No it doesn’t apply to you. So keep your passports with you at all times in case you’re stopped. And I’m sure I don’t need to point out that narcotics are absolutely forbidden. Now you’re gonna be the first contemporary music group ever to be set at a communist countries under the cultural exchange program. Your tour is being filmed. This means there will be a total of fifty-seven people, including yourselves, the film crew and the State Department staff. There will be over fifteen tons of gear, so have patience with your hosts. You’ll be giving them quite a culture shock too. ASSISTANT SECRETRAY RICHARDSON is hosting a reception for you at the State Department this afternoon at three. 

ASSISTANT SECRETRAY RICHARDSON
Members of Blood, Sweat and Tears are all young people. They’re all in their 20s, and they’re all interested in trying this new experience of communicating with new kinds of audiences in Eastern Europe. They’ll be leaving tomorrow with all of our best wishes. 

JIM FIELDER
We were excited by doing it. Yeah. It just seemed like a great way to expand the band’s popularity to a whole new audience. 

JIM FIELDER
We the members of Blood, Sweat and Tears go on this tour first as people. We seek to communicate directly with people over there, and to bring ourselves some understanding of them. We speak the language of music, which is language common to just about everyone in the world. 


DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
The group is delighted with the opportunity to communicate directly with the people of Eastern Europe through music. Um, was the group delighted? Some of the group was delighted. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
What are you doing? A State Department tour for, sponsored by the State Department. Are you nuts?

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I think we were naïve. I don’t think we realized how it would bounce up and bite us. To his credit, Steve did. 

STEVE KATZ
I was horribly against it. 

DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
Certainly, STEVE KATZ was the most outspoken about not approving of the U.S. government. Not approving of what the U.S. government did. He did talk to the PRESS before the tour about being reluctant to participate in a tour on behalf of the government. 

STEVE KATZ
Because I was political. But the guys in the band weren’t political. They were jazz players, or they were rock players. You know, they voted against Nixon, or they voted for Nixon as far as I know. But they’re musicians first. 

STEVE KATZ
There’s something very serious happening. American is not at peace. I believe that at some point, everybody in the United States who opposes the war, and opposes the military industrial complex, and opposes the, the value system which makes older people laugh at younger people and not even listen, should stop and say “We, we are on strike until the insanity ends” period, and that’s why I don’t want, I didn’t wanna go on this tour as a tool of the United States government. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
He was very radical and very, very much into radical politics. Me, not so much. I’m Canadian, I don’t—(Laughs) But we were involved in that counter-culture movement of the day. Mostly based around the Vietnam War, and the anti-war movement. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
To my knowledge, someone in the government was pretty pissed off that, um, a Canadian, and David is a Canadian, was talking against the war in Vietnam… But we were all talking against the war in Vietnam. This was that era, Nixon, our age group, flower power. This is what was going on. 

RICHARD NIXON:  The time has come for action. 


TIM NAFTALI
By 1970, this country is riven by a disagreement. Heated, passionate disagreement. 


TIM NAFTALI
It’s a horrible moment because it forces a lot of Americans to look inside, and ask themselves what does it mean to be patriotic, and they didn’t have the same answer. And because a lot of good people didn’t come up with the same answer, kitchen table conversations around the country became heated, and there was a national divide. And the national divide is defined in terms of Vietnam. 

VIETNAM NETWORK DJ
From Saigon, this is the American forces Vietnam Network….

ROBERT SALERNI
Dear Bobby, I wanna thank you for your music. Especially those songs I got to know very well in 1969, when I heard them and Blood, Sweat & Tears for the first time on the American Forces Vietnam Network. 


ROBERT SALERNI
And then there was “And When I Die,” one of the songs that we used to sing in our frequent fits of black humor. Can you imagine that song blaring from a radio over the (din?) of a helicopter full of G.I.’s on the way to a combat assault?


ROBERT SALERNI
You helped me get through a difficult time. 


ANDY WILLIAMS
In this day of the generation gap it’s unusual to find a musical group that can get through to almost everybody. Ladies and gentlemen here’s that group, Blood Sweat & Tears. 


DAVID WILD
Blood, Sweat & Tears are one of those bands whose moment is so big, uh, that it’s almost like they can’t follow it. 


JIM FIELDER
There were a lot of horn bands coming out in that same era, Chicago, several others, but we set a new definition for Rock and Roll that included that kind of instrumentation. 

CLIVE DAVIS
Blood, Sweat & Tears was among those few artists, they weren’t fitting into it. They were leading the way.  

DAVID WILD
In terms of influence, you can’t really imagine a whole world of horn Rock and Roll happening without them. They were just great, but even their greatness may have been problematic for them. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
It’s very, very hard to have a nine-piece band to, to, to really have a feeling of one. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
This band, I believe, is nine very capable musicians who try to play music. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
Very, very similar, uh, to being in, in ether an eight-piece band or a ten-piece band. 


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
There would be no Blood, Sweat & Tears without BOBBY COLOMBY. He was the, the gel that held it all together. 


STEVE KATZ
Jimmy Fielder will always be one of my favorite people. You listen to some of those lines that he played, they’re amazing. I mean they’re superhuman. 


JIM FIELDER
Dick Halligan, musical genius. 
DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
One of those guys who can pick up any instrument in the room, whether he’s played it or not, and in an half an hour he’ll be playing it. 


JIM FIELDER
Jerry Hyman, great, fun guy. Always smiling, always joking, always pulling your leg about something. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
STEVE KATZ was a very close friend of mine. He’s a funny guy, he had a good sense for songs, let’s find the right songs for the band. 


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS: Fred Lipsius, immensely talented, extremely well-educated musician. 

STEVE KATZ
Freddy would take a lot of time writing an arrangement, but they would always be fantastic, and they would always come from his heart.


STEVE KATZ
LEW SOLOFF was such a great trumpet player. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Blistering lead trumpet player. Lew would not only nail it, he’d sting it.


BOBBY COLOMBY
Chuck Winfield, the nicest man you’ll ever meet in your life. Other trombone players probably would have been bummed because Lewie was the trumpet star. 

STEVE KATZ
Chuck just played his part as second trumpet. I never heard him play a mistake. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
He gave it his all, was totally fine doing what he did. He was a prince.


FRED LIPSIUS
To me DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS was the best pop singer during our time. 

JIM FIELDER
Powerful, powerful voice. It seemed like something from deep inside of him. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
He was the best band member in terms of work ethic, making every gig, knowing what he had to do. He was incredible.

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
The thing that held us together was every guy in that band did what they did really, really well. No matter what went on in the band, whatever political differences or everything else, when that band hit the stage every night, it gelled. It was magic. 




TINA CUNNINGHAM
We’re at the airport, we’re ready to leave on this big tour, and where’s David? David’s not there. 


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I’m ready to get on the plane and all of sudden a whole gang of New York City policemen show up and took me into handcuffs. 


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
After spending most of my teen years in reformatories and to find myself after having the biggest album in the world and I was on top of the world and suddenly I’m in handcuffs again? Terrified. Terrified. I thought my life was over at that point. 
 
MARTIN WENICK
I became aware of the arrest when I went to the passenger check-in counter at the Pan American terminal at Kennedy International Airport. The charges had been filed by a former girlfriend, who alleged that he had threatened her with a gun in December 1969. The charges had been files on June 11th, two days prior to our departure. During the course of the evening, Thomas continued to maintain that the whole thing was a frame-up. We were told to proceed to Brooklyn night court. 

TINA CUNNINGHAM
There was a lot of tension. We were waiting to see, uh, if we were gonna be able to go, if we were gonna be able to make the trip or are they, they gonna send him away, and when David came out, I just remember he had this haunted look in his eyes….

MARTIN WENICK
But when the case was called up, the judge then requested me to testify as to the nature and length of Thomas’ proposed absence from the U.S. I provided the court with the requested information, where upon the judge continued the case until August 12th, and set bail at one thousand dollars in cash, since Thomas is neither an American citizen nor a resident of New York State. With my assistance, bail was arranged, and Thomas was released about 12:30am. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
The police of course investigated and found that it was totally bogus. I had never threatened anybody with a gun. I didn’t even own a gun. And, uh, like I say, released me with apologies and I joined the band in London and then we flew on to do the tour from there. But it was a nasty moment. 




DONN CAMBERN
I’m Donn Cambern, and I was director of the Lost Blood, Sweat & Tears documentary. 

MARTIN WENICK
The State Department had no objection to the proposed film coverage, as long as all the cost of the film crew were not the responsibility of the department. 
The department retains the right to assure that the final product will not impair the relations between the United States government, and the three Eastern European governments. 

DONN CAMBERN
This was my first real directing job. My vision was to make a concert film. When we arrived in Zagreb, things changed. We were playing it by ear, I was playing it by ear, I was playing it by ear. We didn’t know exactly what was gonna happen. It was nerve-wracking, but it was really exciting.  



DAN KLEIN
Yugoslavia was great. It was kind of lifeless. Um, that much I remember. Um, at, at least Zagreb, which was the first place we went, was just kind of big, stone buildings. Not much energy, not much of anything. 

JIM FIELDER
Poverty like we hadn’t even seen before in the states. It was, uh, ve-, very, very heart wrenching. 

STEVE KATZ
When we got there the first night we spent in Zagreb, and I really thought that I was in the 1940s spy movie, you know, black and white. It was really strange. 

WINSTON CHURCHILL
Ladies and Gentlemen this is no time for generalities, and I will venture to be precise. Though nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist International organization intends to do in the immediate future. From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. 

TIM NAFTALI
It’s WINSTON CHURCHILL who popularizes the idea that the world is divided by this, this, this frontier between freedom and slavery. 


TIM NAFTALI
And the countries East of that frontier, they’re under Soviet domination. And those West are free. 

JACK KELLY
The rotten system you call communism.

TIM NAFTALI
And so the Cold War was an existential struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. 


JOHN F. KENNEDY
Every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation, or by madness. 
 
DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
The generation that grew up in the 1950s certainly experienced the Cold war as the threat of nuclear Armageddon. 

NARRATOR
Always remember, a flash of an atomic bomb can come at any time, no matter where you may be. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
We grew up where we would have air raid drills. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
And air raid drill meant if a hydrogen bomb was going to drop outside of your school, if you hid under your desk and put your hands behind your head you’d be fine, you know? So we actually practiced those, those drills. 

TIM NAFTALI
The Soviets knew that they were behind. The Soviet leader was a guy named Nikita Khrushchev. He knew it, ‘cause the Soviets could count missiles. What they decided was they were so fearful of the United States that they would exaggerate the number of their missiles. Then they went on this campaign propaganda deception campaign to lead Americans to believe that the Soviets were ahead and had missiles that could reach the United States. 

JOHN F. KENNEDY
It will be the policy of the United States, to proceed in developing nuclear weapons, to maintain this superior capability, for the defense of the free world against any aggressor. 

DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
At that time there was a huge concern that the United States looked like a country of brute force power, military power, and there was an idea that the arts could make us look like we had a soul. 

NARRATOR
 If visitors from foreign lands can’t all travel to Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Opera will come to them. The company is getting ready for a tour which will carry it halfway around the world, right up to the edge of the Iron Curtain. These are not the only American artists performing on international tours. There are many more travelling throughout the world as part of what is known officially as The President’s Special International Program for Cultural Presentations. 

DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
The State Department began this program officially in 1954, but there was that tilt towards classical music in the early years. By 1956 they’re choosing to send Jazz as well. 
 
REP. ADAM CLAYTON POWELL
Send these artists over where they can reach the masses. Where people can see America and hear America and what we have done, uh, face to face. One of the people who we’re planning to use, my friend DIZZY GILLEPSIE. 

DIZZY GILLEPSIE
And I’ll fight to, uh, to make the people, all over the world, to understand our American way of life. Uh, the weapon that we will use is a cool one. This is the cool weapon that we would use. 

TIM NAFTALI
So if you liked Jazz, it meant you liked an element of American society. And wow, when you start to like one element of American society, what other elements of American society might you like?


TIM NAFTALI
That’s the role I believe music is playing when thinking about soft power. It’s, it’s not a secret weapon but it is a weapon against cultural mind control by these authoritarian states. 

DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
For the Eastern bloc countries, the Blood, Sweat & Tears tour comes at a point in history that is so, it’s full of change. Um, political change, social change. It’s a very difficult moment. 


IRA WOLFERT
Having spanned the generation gap, the band now aspired to span the political gap. They were sacrificing for their dream, giving the communist ten concerts, and waving their usual fee of twenty-five thousand dollars per. Nobody had any idea before the opening concert in Zagreb, how East European audiences would react to music that communists had been banning officially as part of a capitalist plot to degenerate their youth. So, the U.S. State Department, cultural Affairs Offices, and the band were on edge, each for their own reason. 

LARRY GOLDBLATT
How we doing?

LEW SOLOFF
Oh God. 

LARRY GOLDBLATT
Play Romania, Romania.  


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I understand it’s the first time in history that this stadium has sold out. Is it really?

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Yeah. That I didn’t know. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Yeah, the, the ambassador came over and told us today.  



DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Thank you. 

Harry Dunlop (telegram)
Some five thousand cheering young Yugoslavs gave Blood, Sweat & Tears rousing opening night reception. Natural spontaneous coverage by film crew of student enthusiasm including cheering, clapping and dancing at concert likely will have favorable impact when shown in U.S. Strongest impact will come from scenes of thousands listening attentively, quietly to American music. They did not want to miss a sound. 


STEVE KATZ
So who is LARRY GOLDBLATT? Can I ask you the same question? (Chuckles) Where did this guy come from?


BOBBY COLOMBY
Our lawyer called and said, “I’ve got a guy that I think would be a great manager for you,” and I went “I’m all ears. What do you got?” He says “Well he’s in prison. He’s, uh, in Chino prison right now” and I went “Where’s this going?” “But he’s really clever. Imaginative and thinks out of the box” I said, “He’s in prison.”  “Yeah. He’ll be perfect. This is the music business.”

JIM FIELDER
Larry was a great guy and made some great decisions. He primarily set up the Eastern European tour. 
 
BOBBY COLOMBY
At this particular point in time, our lead singer, um, had had a problem. The band had a number one album on the chart, we were doing incredibly well, and then David gets his green card removed through some inside Washington D.C. political crap that we didn’t know about, and we don’t have a singer to play in the United States anymore. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I was gonna be deported, and the band could not afford to lose me at that point. With three number one singles and the number one record in the world, they were gonna do everything they could to keep me in the band. 

JIM FIELDER
If we were gonna be able to have him stay in the states, we were gonna need some help higher up, and the State Department is about as higher up as you can get and, in matters like that. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
So apparently LARRY GOLDBLATT had figured out a way, being Larry, to get his green card back, and that was to make some kind of deal with the State Department. 

STEVE KATZ
And so, uh, we were booked on this Eastern European tour. It was brought to us in such a way that I knew exactly why we were gonna do it, but we couldn’t say anything about it. It was a secret. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Thank you..!! Thank you. 

WILLIAM LEONHEART
BST concerts well attended. Resulted in lasting positive impact. Extensive media coverage overwhelmingly positive. As lasting cultural impact on the BST visit persists, our enthusiasm for the visit mounts. Keeping in mind, of course, that one astute Yugoslav reviewer did refer to the visit as “the event of the decade.”

FRED LIPSIUS
(Chuckles) One place we played in, uh, Yugoslavia, um, some people didn’t like us. I think some people threw beer cans at us or something. That’s my memory of it. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
We’re all looking at each other saying “This isn’t going well,” and it got worse. People were peeling out of the gig. By the end there were not a lot of people left. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
That audience couldn’t wait to get out of there. I’ll say one thing, when we bomb we do it big. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
The end of the show, I walk off the stage and I look up and there’s a guy, a Charles Manson type, beard, crazy eyes, all the way up on the top, and he sees me, and he starts coming down, down, down, I’m going “You know what, it was worth it just for him. This guy had such a good time,” and he comes right down to the front, and I go “How you doing?” and he goes “You stink. You stink” and he like throws, he tried – and I get out of the way I went. 

TINA CUNNINGHAM
The audience tried, but they didn’t understand the music at all. The sound was strange to them. We judged they were quite a bit behind us in the music scene. At any rate, the group left with no encores and pretty bent out of shape. At that point they decided to have a meeting for a vote whether they should continue the tour, or split. 
The boys decide everything by vote. Nobody decides anything for them. 
It just can’t work this way, except that it does. 



DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
You know we have a tendency here to say, “This is the Iron Curtain and behind it all is communism.” But communism is so diverse and varied, it would be like comparing the government of England to the government of Italy and saying they’re both Democratic countries. I know myself I said “Wow, so this is communism. This is groovy.” Then we went into Romania, Konstanz. We got off the plane and you could feel the Iron Curtain slam behind you. 

AIRPORT ANNOUNCEMENT
Mister Blood, Mister Sweat, Mister Tears, your plane is ready. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
I met STEVE KATZ, and we were hanging out in the West Village. We became good friends, he had just come from a band called The Blues Project, and one of the members of The Blues Project was a guy named AL COOPER. AL COOPER had a publishing deal, Brill Building, songwriter getting his songs done by other people, understood the business better than anybody. 

STEVE KATZ
Al had always wanted to put horns into The Blues Project, and Danny Kalb who was the leader of The Blues Project nixed that idea. 

AL COOPER
This is AL COOPER, Blood, Sweat & Tears. It’s talent and enthusiasm that makes the band go, and the music that we do. Music that I believe in so strongly, that can only be translated through this band. I can’t explain it any other way except to have you hear what we do. 
 

JIM FIELDER
An opportunity to blend Jazz with Rock. I had always kind of wondered why somebody hadn’t, hadn’t already done that, that kind of thing. To have like a full-on big band type sound. 

FRED LIPSIUS
There was nothing like us. You know, there was no one doing what we were doing. 


CLIVE DAVIS
It was the Cafe Au Go Go in the Village. I do remember sitting there watching and listening and being very, very imPRESSed that this was a new sound. 


CLIVE DAVIS
I had never seen horns used this way. Truthfully it floored me. I was knocked out and I agreed to sign them on the spot. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
Al put the deal together, he got a great producer, John Simon, and we made a record, you know, in a couple of weeks. 

FRED LIPSIUS
I think the first album was great. Very eclectic, all kinds of different music. It’s like a treasure chest of little kid opening a treasure chest, a music box. 

DAVID WILD
I loved the first album. Rock and Roll, when it’s horny, that’s the best. And there are these horn arrangements that are spectacular and that were probably borrowed by every band that’s ever followed that’s dared to do horns. I even think of the name Blood, Sweat & Tears. I think it suggested a work ethic. A band that had really learned their instruments. A band that knew what the fuck they were doing. 


CLIVE DAVIS
That first albums was one of the great American rock albums. It was influential. The rock critics loved it. They were even analogies to being the American Beatles. The only difference is, and it’s a significant commercial point, it didn’t have singles in it, but musically it was edgy, it was pioneering. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
It sold forty thousand. It was a failure. If that album was a great success, you think Al would have been out of the band?


STEVE KATZ
My only problem with it was I didn’t feel that Al was the best singer, and we asked him to stay in the band as the leader of the band, but we wanted to get another singer. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
I felt the only way we could have success, the only way we could be on the radio and be heard was to have a stronger singer. He said, “Wait a minute, if I’m not the singer I’m walking.”

CLIVE DAVIS
I was shocked, I was surprised, this group was building. I was rooting for them. So that, yes, it was personally disappointing to see these personal issues come in. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
I am now the band leader. Clive and I have a conversation. He says, “What do you think it’s gonna take to keep this together?” So it begins with auditioning, and we auditioned a lot of singers. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
BOBBY COLOMBY called me, he said “We’d like you to try out with our new band, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and we went to a rehearsal at the Cafe Au Go Go. I had only had time to learn one or two songs. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
I’ll never forget this. I said “Okay let’s do I love you more than you’ll ever know. Here we go.” One, two, three, one…(Mimicking Music)

BOBBY COLOMBY
I said, “That’s it, you got the gig.” I don’t think he sang, I don’t think he sang more than that. 

FRED LIPSIUS
I was jumping up and down when I heard him after he finished the tune, uh, like a little kid. Uh, so excited. We all knew he’s the guy. 


STEVE KATZ
If you listen to the second album as opposed to the first, the first had echo and all kinds of sound effects. The second album is very flat, right in your face. It was beautifully conceived. That was one of the reasons, that and David singing, made it into a hit record. 


STEVE KATZ
I used to call Billboard and Cashbox every week to find out whether the album was on the charts or not, and in Cashbox it went up to number sixteen one week, I couldn’t believe it. I f-, I was walking on air, said “Oh my God, this is like fabulous. We have a, we’re a hit act.” I called up next week, the woman who I would talk to said, “I can’t find it.” I’m saying “Well, what the heck” you know. “It went up to sixteen, that’s pretty good,” right? She calls me back and says, “You know what, I didn’t think to look at number one.”

CLIVE DAVIS
What we had with the second album would, became one of the best-selling albums at that time in history, with three huge singles, distinctive singles., memorable singles. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
In the heyday of this band, you could not avoid Blood, Sweat & Tears. You turned on the radio you were bound to hear one of our songs. We were ubiquitous, we’re, I’m serious, we were everywhere. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
The speed with which it happened was astounding. 

FRED LIPSIUS
We were all middle-class guys. We didn’t know, all of a sudden sort of just changed our lives. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
Two promoters, Mike Lang, Artie Kornfeld have an idea of doing a concert in New York, upstate somewhere. Without having the biggest band in the world at that moment, it’s not gonna be as easy to get other people to sign on. So one of the first bands they offered a gig to, was Blood, Sweat & Tears. 

DAVID WILD
So the aging kids who went to Lollapalooza or to the, you know, slightly younger kids who went to Coachella, like, that universe of festivals, it all goes back to Woodstock. 

MC: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome with us, Blood, Sweat & Tears. 
 
DAVID WILD
Woodstock was the mother of all festivals, and it was sort of this accidental happening that changed the game. But it also based everyone in a light of being the anointed ones. The new generation that was going to sort of change the world. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
♪♪ Like medicine, baby, you’re good for me. Like honey, darlin’ yeah, I know you’re sweet to me. Each passing day brings us much closer together. The love you give me, darlin’, just gets better and better. That’s why my love for you keep on growing more and more all the time. More and more, all the time. All right. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Most people don’t know that we were at Woodstock. My daughter called me up and said “Dad, I thought you played a Woodstock” I say, “I did.” “I saw the movie and you weren’t in it.” Well a lot of people weren’t in it. 


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
What happened is the big gates had all been knocked down. Six hundred thousand people had mobbed the fences and broke them down, and there was no money, so the promoters couldn’t pay anybody. Then our manager, a guy named Bennett Glotzer at the time, and when we hit the stage we played like one, maybe two songs, and he ordered the cameras turned off. 


DAVID WILD
History belongs to the one who gets in the movie, and they did not get in the movie. Why? Probably ‘cause, you know, the manager wanted an extra five grand, and he didn’t get it so then he goes “Okay, we’re not in the movie.” It’s easy to make fun of Bennett Glotzer keeping them out of the Woodstock movie but he wasn’t the only one. There were other smart managers who said, “They’re not paying enough to get you in the movie.” So you never know, like, how history gets written. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
Now, the next question that you’re all a-, going to ask is, do you feel like you should have been in the movie? Fuck yeah. (Chuckles) It would have changed everything. 


CLIVE DAVIS
You’re asking me, was Blood, Sweat and Tears on a suicide mission playing Caesars Palace…

JIM FIELDER
(Chuckles)  Uh, well, we certainly thought it could be a suicide mission. On the other hand, we could see it as opening a door for other people in rock and roll to have a meaningful place to play. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Now everybody does it. The Stones, Elton John, everybody’s doing it. But it was a very controversial thing to do in those days. 

STEVE KATZ
You know, Vegas was everything that was garish and against everything that the county culturist stood for. So we got killed doing that. 


FRED LIPSIUS
LARRY GOLDBLATT, our manager, was very creative and he got us into Caesars Palace, which no one had, I don’t think a rock band had ever played there, and when we played at Caesars Palace we broke Sinatra’s attendance record. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
The crème de la crème of Hollywood was there that night. Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, you know, Sammy Davis Junior, Sidney Poitier, and I walked out and looked in the audience and went “Oh my God, this is surreal,” and it was a tremendous success in that way, but again that underground PRESS of the day, “Oh, sellout.”

STEVE KATZ
Playing Las Vegas, big mistake but boy, a lot of fun. 

CLIVE DAVIS
It was not fatal to them, but it would, certainly didn’t add to their luster. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
But the next gig we had after Las Vegas was the Fillmore East, which is one of the hippest places you could play in the United States. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
Then we played a fundraiser at Madison Square Garden with Jimi Hendrix, and it was amazing, and then we played in Cleveland to raise money for the ACLU to reopen the case for the kids that got massacred at Kent State. We didn’t abandon our fan base at all. 

CLIVE DAVIS
There’s no question Blood, Sweat & Tears was still a powerful draw as far as audience and their big album is concerned. 

FRED LIPSIUS
And I’ll preface this by saying, we were one year away from when they videoed the Grammys. So we’re not videoed, or on camera. We missed all of that. We were nominated for many Grammy Awards. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
The winner for album of the year, the most prestigious award, Blood, Sweat & Tears. A distant second, Abby Road. 


DAVID WILD
When they won best album, and not only beat The Beatles, but got the award handed to them by Louie Armstrong, there was nothing cooler than that. 


DONN CAMBERN
When we left Yugoslavia, our next stop was Romania. Romania. We had stepped into a different world. The first thing that we saw when we got off the plane, were guards with submachine guns across the tarmac, looking at us.


FRED LIPSIUS
Everything was kinda dark. I, I don’t mean the sun didn’t come out, it was very opPRESSive. It just felt like there’s no freedom. 

ROCKY
We’re all alone in a foreign land. 

NARRATOR
 Well those are certainly not friendly glances. Just who do all those sinister eyeballs belong to?

BULLWINKLE
You know I got kind of a sneaky feeling we’re being watched. 

ROCKY
Oh nonsense, Bullwinkle. Who’d wanna watch us?

NARRATOR
 Well the answer to that was simple enough, everybody. 


DAN KLEIN
As soon as everything was at the hotel they started snooping through it, and like I had watched my James Bond movies….So I knew you put a thread over the drawer, and if you came back and the thread was gone, then you would know somebody had opened the drawer. Well, they did. 


SECRET INFORMANT “PAULA”
Most of the film crew as well as the band members have very long hair, and they are dressed excessively eccentric and careless. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
When we’d go into a coffee shop, and there would be a guy sitting there with a newspaper upside-down with a hole in it, you know looking at us, and they would follow us around. 

DONN CAMBERN
It was wonderfully whacky. Just the way you would think a spy thriller would be. It was incredible. Lie men in black hats and black overcoats. I mean you could spot them three miles away. (Chuckles) In one sense it was very, very laughable, but in another sense their presence was all around us. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I stepped out of the hotel and took a picture and like two guys grabbed me. Took the camera, stripped the film out of the camera. “You can’t take a picture of that bridge. It’s a military bridge.” Uh, just like that. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
I’m wandering outside the hotel, it’s almost midnight, and it’s the guy with the newspaper and he’s, he’s doing a lot of this and I’m walking here and he’s…and I’d walk over here. 


FRED LIPSIUS
I was having breakfast. I don’t remember what I ordered, but I noticed some, like in a Peter Sellers movie. 


FRED LIPSIUS
There was a man behind me like, like, almost like he was doing it on purpose, but they were serious, and it was very corny to me, but he was like trying to be not noticed. It’s only me and him, duh. (Laughs)

NARRATOR
 Little did our heroes know that at that moment they are the object of close scrutiny by an eye high in the sky. Why is this fearless leader keeping tab on our heroes? Maybe we’ll find out next time—

BAD GUY
Over your dead body. 

NARRATOR
 And maybe we won’t. 

TIM NAFTALI
The Romanian leader was a horrific authoritarian named Nicolae Ceaușescu. Ceaușescu was a dictator. He’s a monster actually. In 1968 the Czech government had tried to reform itself, and went too far, and the Soviets responded by invading Czechoslovakia…. Ceaușescu wants , has, sees this balancing act. Uh, he wants to get more autonomy from the Soviets, and more economic benefits from the United States, without triggering a Soviet invasion, and without losing any real power. It is the sense that Ceaușescu wants to be a Maverick communist that leads the Nixon administration to be interested in him. 

RICHARD NIXON
It is the first visit of a President of the United States to Romania. The first state visit by an American President to a Socialist country or to this region of the continent of Europe. And the purpose of my visit here is to improve communications between our two nations. Traiasca prietenia Romano-Americana.

TIM NAFTALI
Nixon’s visit to Romania establishes a relationship with Ceaușescu, and that’s the opening through which Blood, Sweat & Tears will enter the country. Now what’s ironic is that, you know, RICHARD NIXON couldn’t stand rock music, and the idea that the Romanians think they’re doing something for RICHARD NIXON by letting Blood, Sweat & Tears come to Romania is sort of very funny in retrospect. I mean it—


AUREL MITRAN (Subtitled)
I did realize that I wasn’t just attending some concert. The Blood, Sweat and Tears concert, it was an American vaccine against the Communist pandemic. 

MIKE GODORJA:  (Subtitled)
The Blood, Sweat and Tears concert on like an earthquake. 

AUREL MITRAN:  (Subtitled)
The feeling of freedom it exuded was extraordinary. 


DORU STANCULESCU:  (Subtitled)
The world turned upside down. It was a revelation. 


MIKE GODORJA:  (Subtitled)
The show meant more than a rock music concert. It was a sign for all of Romania that outside the borders there is life, and it is a very free one. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
Hey everybody, could we be quiet for one second? David. David, can you listen to me, please? They’re gonna want another set. 

DONN CAMBERN
The audience would not stop cheering. They cheered and cheered and cheered. 

JIM FIELDER
Oh, those kids were amazing. They just, uh, they loved it, they wanted, uh, encore after encore. 


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I can’t quit her, no. She got a hand on me. She got a hold of my soul. I can’t quit her. ‘Cause I see her face everywhere I go. In the city streets, in the country field, the back of my mind I know it can’t be real. For a woman to possess the tenderness she had. Yeah. Let me go, woman…..I can’t quit, no. ‘Cause on my darkest night she comes on like a light. I can’t quit her. Try as I may, with all my might. She had a…oooh, can’t quit her, no. Hey…!!


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Thank you. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
They are looking at freedom, and they’re reacting to it, and that didn’t go well with the government for sure. 


DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
That moment where it might start to look like social protest, or it might start to even just look, um, like not just enjoying the music. (Chuckles) That would be a concern. 


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
The kids were jumping up out of their seats yelling with peace signs going “USA..!! USA..!! Peace..!! Peace..!!”


TINA CUNNINGHAM
I remember seeing one youngster in the audience with chains, like this. (Chuckles) (Emotional) Anyway, so this was a bit much for the Romania authorities. This was, uh, this kind of, it was too chaotic for them to deal with. This, uh, rePRESSed desire for freedom. 

DONN CAMBERN
As soon as the audience started to really erupt into all of their happiness, the soldiers started to move in. 


DONN CAMBERN: Someone started a fire. This drove the guards crazy. There was a lot of grabbing and stomping on the floor. The audience was reacting to what the guards were doing to them. They were trying to say “The hell with you. We’re gonna be doing what we want.”


DONN CAMBERN
It was absolutely fabulous how the band and their music touched them so deeply. 

MIRCEA FLORIAN:  (Subtitled)
I admit that I had high hopes. I thought that maybe it would happen, like in Czechoslovakia. That it would be liberalized. And I was hoping that such a concert only served as proof to tell me. “You’re right. This hope of yours may come true. This flower will bear some fruit.” It was not meant to be.

BOBBY COLOMBY
I was with Lew when we got a call from LARRY GOLDBLATT that there was a meeting in Steve’s room. 

ROMANIAN EMBASSY REPRESENTATIVE
How many of you are here now? One, two.

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Five are here and two more are co-, are on their, how long is it gonna take?

BOBBY COLOMBY
Our man at the embassy explained to us that our concert had been termed by the Romanian government as too successful.  

Romanian Embassy Rep
You have to realize what kind of a society you are in. Who you are dealing with. You were entirely too successful for the likings of the regime. The question is whether you will have a show tonight or not and the question is whether you will do any filming in Romania or not

DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
The presence of a film crew was a game changer in a lot of ways. From the embassy’s slightly nervous perspective, having the film crew there was amplifying the crowd’s excitement in a way that might have been counterproductive in terms if controlling the event, in terms of not angering the Romanian government. 

TIM NAFTALI
What held these police states together was fear. Fear of the police. Fear of the military. Fear that your neighbor was an informant. That you’d lose your job. That you’d lose your apartment. That you might go to jail. That you might be shot. When you have an ecstatic audience response to a cultural moment, many people forgot about that fear, but not everybody. Representers of the Romanian government were fearful for their own jobs. Oh my God, if Ceaușescu hears that there was a pro-USA demonstration on my watch, I may go to jail. 

ROMANIAN EMBASSY REP
They have laid down certain conditions which they want to have met. I’m not saying for a moment that we will force you, that we will demand from you that you meet these conditions, but I think it’s clear that if none of their conditions are accepted, we will have no show tonight. 

DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
They would also have been very concerned about what got onto film. They wouldn’t want the police to be seen as rePRESSive in a way that would then look bad in the West. 

LARRY GOLDBLATT
This is the Bucharest manifesto. Number one, more Jazz. Two, less rhythm, by that they mean big beat, rock, whatever excites the audience to what they call, whatever they, whatever excites what they call the peripheral characters in the audience (Clears Throat) to craziness, as they said. Three, fewer gestures and body movements. Four, no taking off articles of clothing on stage. Five, keep technicians with long hair off stage. Six, no filming tonight. Seven, if the audience makes too much noise, stop the show. Eight, maximum of two encores. Nine, reduce sound level. Ten, no throwing musical instruments off stage. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
It seems ludicrous now, but this really happened. We had a song called “Smiling Phases” and on the intro of the song, I hit a big gong. Bang. It’s kind of rock and roll theatre. I hit the gong three times and on the fourth time I would just toss it on the ground. When it hit the floor, the band would kick in to “Smiling Phases.” (Mimics music) That was just part of our show. We’ve been doing it like that way for a year. 
 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
We didn’t realize that we had struck a wrong nerve with Ceaușescu. 

LARRY GOLDBLATT
Now let me just tell you the way it was left and the way that they understand it now. I told them I would ask you to play more Jazz, and not throw the gong off the stage. Uh, and I would ask the sound technicians if they could have an, uh, the proper sound by decreasing the level, and that’s all. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
May I ask, who is the man in Romania who’s the Jazz, uh, finder? Who’s the man that’s gonna stand there with a Jazz meter? (Chuckles) Not enough Jazz. 

LARRY GOLDBLATT
Can I tell them that you will remember what we discussed here. You listening Bobby?

BOBBY COLOMBY
You can tell them that and we’ll go to play.  

LARRY GOLDBLATT
And that you’ll play more Jazz and, fine.  

JIM FIELDER
We can tell ‘em—

STEVE KATZ
So you could, yeah, right. Well you would go and play more Jazz, but I don’t wanna play more Jazz maybe. In the contract that exists for your being here, one clause in that contact says that the show must be decent. 

STEVE KATZ
What are the consequences if we do the same show as we did last night, period? 

BOBBY COLOMBY
Without dancing—

STEVE KATZ
No, wait, no. same show, because you can’t, Dan you, if he gets into it you can’t guarantee that. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
At the meeting we had no choice except to agree to try and stop trouble. I think almost everyone was really uptight about our situation there and we did not wanna change around our set so drastically that our music would completely change. 

STEVE KATZ
So we were basically saying to the government “Screw You” you know “We’re gonna do as good a job as we can and make the audience happy with as much rock and roll as we can, and that’s what we did. 


ION DIMANDI:  (Subtitled)
When you got there, there was tension. A tension that was caused by the fact that there were militiamen. They were militiamen with wolf dogs. And many, not just a few. And who also had very suspicious eyes. You could feel that they would intervene at the first defiance. 


DONN CAMBERN
They had demanded that there was no filming. I talked to my five cameramen and said, “I’m sure that you all have your still cameras with you?” They said “Yeah.” I said “Pull ‘em out. We can’t shoot it with our 16mm, we’ll shoot our 35 stills, and they can’t stop us. 


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
As the lead singer I get a good read of the audience. I could tell and kids in the audience were praying. “Please, please, hit the gong. Please, do it, please.” Give them that, you know what I mean? Time came, started ‘Smiling Phases” and I looked at LEW SOLOFF and he looked, looked at me and said “Fuck ‘em.”


FRED LIPSIUS
David throws the gong into the audience. In slow-motion I’m imagining like “The Godfather,” machine guns slowly in slow motion, and all blood and everything coming out of all of us, dead. Blood, Sweat & Tears is dead, you know, Thank you David. 


STEVE KATZ
And I wanted to go on record saying I’m proud of David. Why? Because that was his anti-establishment, uh, even though it was the establishment of the Romanian government, it was still, uh, the right thing to do. Come on guys, let’s go. Steven..!!Let’s go out and take a bow, okay? Let’s take a bow. Come on. No? Don’t play, Don’t play. No? No? To get David in here. Get David in here. David is out, David, come back. 

JIM FIELDER
The kids weren’t gonna leave, and it was just yelling and, and singing and just having a great time getting real rowdy. Rand, I’m excited. I wanna play for those kids. One more song won’t make a difference. I don’t either, man. But yelling at ‘em is not gonna get anything done. Now we can do an encore and we can cool that crowd down. He’s telling us not to do it. They’re telling us not to, I wanna run over people, man, and ruin something. 

JIM FIELDER
All of a sudden the police brought in dogs. Set the dogs loose on the crowd 


AUREL MITRAN:  (Subtitled)
The police with German shepherds we were used to. The band wasn’t used to these things, but we knew what was coming. We had gone as if to a revolution, not just a concert. We wanted to see the American music. You see those dogs going into the crowd? The kids ran through a plate glass window in the back. True, they broke it. They, they stood these and broke the window, with a fire. With a fire? The last goddamn thing I saw man was those kids laughing, man, and happy. We gave them guns and bloodshed, that’s what we gave them and all they wanted to do was be happy. 

JIM FIELDER
One kid had managed to get backstage, and he just wanted an autograph. The police saw him and saw that he wasn’t supposed to be there. Took him into a dressing room and beat the crap out of him. 

JIM FIELDER
He came back out all bruised and bloody, and they said, “Now you can have your autograph.”


JIM FIELDER
I mean I d-, I don’t’ wake up screaming or anything like that but, uh, yeah it’s, it’s, uh, those images will, will never leave my brain. 


TIM NAFTALI
These regimes, they tried to put their best foot forward when visitors came. When they allowed people in. That night, the regime took the mask off, and so the band saw the reality of, of life in, in Ceausescu’s Romania. 


SECRET INFORMANT “DAMIAN”
Mister Ted Arthur from the State Department, whose activity has been under observation of the security, told me about the regret the State Department has regarding the behavior of the band Blood, Sweat & Tears . The BS &T documentary crew shot several sequences whose inclusion in finished film would be most unfortunate from viewpoint of embassy’s relations with Romanian authorities, and institutions. 

DONN CAMBERN
After all of that excitement we got the word that the government intended to take the exposed film and destroy it. They did not want it to leave Romania. The guards at the airport insisted on putting our film cans through an x-ray machine, knowing that the radiation would erase all of the images on the film. All the incredible moment we captured on film were gone, or so the guards thought. What they didn’t know is that the night before, my crew didn’t take the exposed film to the hotel as usual. 

DAN KLEIN
The exposed film was taken to the U.S. Embassy, and I was told it was stored in the kitchen in a refrigerator. This is all not catering to my idea of the James Bond story. 

DONN CAMBERN
The next morning, in a scene right out of Mission Impossible, our crew removed the exposed film from cans and replaced it with rolls of blank film stock. The exposed film was then put into cans where the blank stock had been. 

JIM FIELDER
The guys on the film crew packed all the film in these cardboard boxes, just nondescript looking cardboard boxes, got the to the airport, took them themselves across the tarmac to the airplane and, uh, some policemen sees them doing this says, “What you got in there?” and they said “Seatbelts.” (Laughs)


Irene Carstones (memo)
Filmic coverage, according to Escort Officer MARTIN WENICK was smuggled out of the country by unit cameraman Terry Gould. Gould smuggled the film on the aircraft with other material on the pretense that he was pilot of the plane. Mister Wenick strongly emphasized the need of earliest review of all the footage, with department exercising its responsibility in seeing to it that all objectionable sequences be removed prior to review by the host countries. If reason fails to persuade, Wenick suggested that we go so far as to stop release of the film. 


STEVE KATZ
It was just very, very scary. I mean it was like when you feel good to have, to, to, to fly into, uh, Soviet Poland, when it feels like you’re free, you know, Romania’s gotta be pretty bad. 


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Warsaw was a great metropolitan city, very hip, they had Jazz music, they had American records, they knew us by name. It was like coming out of a dark tunnel into the sunlight again. 


JAN ADAMSKI:  (Subtitled)
1960s Poland, under the rule of the Communist Party, was almost completely cut off from the West. At that time we were at the periphery and hardly any western culture was received here. And so the Blood, Sweat & Tears concert was simply an unimaginable event. I felt that I just had to be at this concert, but I lived in a small town that was 300 miles away from Warsaw. So, I travelled 12 hours by train in order to attend the concert. 

KRZYSZTOF DOWGIRD:  (Subtitled)
Those were terribly different times in Poland, so it was an event on a cosmic scale. The tickets were hellishly expensive. Today it’s hard for me to compare, but at the time they probably cost half a young boy’s salary.  There was a very unusual atmosphere at the concert that night. The entire Congress Hall was surrounded by the police. We knew they would make sure we didn’t dance, shout or act out. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
I saw troops in trucks…And I realized, they must have heard what happened in Romania, and expected the, the same kind of riot and it was the exact opposite. It was a beautiful audience, sophisticated, knowledgeable, and whatever they were preparing for never happened. 

STEVE KATZ
The audiences were fantastic. The reason is they were really starved for this kind of music. They just really were warm to us. 


POLISH OFFICIAL
Once again, well done and we’re glad that you’re here and hope that you’ll enjoy your stay. Now time for questions. 

PRESS
Do you think that this trip will have any effect on you after you return to America?

STEVE KATZ
I came on this trip, uh, my personal feelings, my beliefs politically at home I felt were my priorities. Rather than coming here I felt that we had things to do at home in America first because of the struggle there. And now I feel, since I can go home and take care of the priorities, I’m glad I came. I’m glad I did this. I’m glad this was the priority. Because, uh, the first thing that I have to do is to help keep my country together. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
We have travelled in countries where certain rePRESSions are a way of life. Where people don’t enjoy the privilege of spontaneous outburst, and I think it’s given us all a new appreciation of various freedoms that we took for granted. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I think all of the pain and the, the angst of the last four days in Romania kinda came out on stage that night. We walked out on that big, beautiful concert bow in Warsaw, one of the most beautiful concert theatres in the world, packed to the rim, and the band just exploded that night. It was amazing concert, I could remember it to this day as being one of the most remarkable concerts we ever played. We did like four encores. We couldn’t get off the stage. They kept bringing us back and bringing us back. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
♪♪ Doing things with everybody else. When I called out loudly
She answered kind o' proudly. She spent her life upon the shelf. ♪♪

STEVE KATZ
The most important thing is that we made audiences happy over there. Where they wouldn’t have had that experience. And that was something that I hadn’t thought about at the beginning. How happy these people would be, and how appreciative they were. And that was, that, I wanna underline that because it was a great experience. 


DANIELLE FOSLER LUSSIER
The State Department felt it got good value out of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Were they worried about the problematic aspect, things that might have gotten on film that shouldn’t? But on the balance, uh, they’re pretty happy with the work that’s being accomplished through these Blood, Sweat & Tears concerts. 

CASEY KASEM  It looks like Rock and Roll music is getting into the Cold War. The communists are letting the State Department send American Rock and Roll groups behind the Iron Curtain. The first group to make that scene just wound up a tour in Romania, Yugoslavia and Poland. If there has to be a Cold war this is the way to fight it. Blood, Sweat & Tears.

PRESS
I’ll just introduce, um, everybody to you. DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS, BOBBY COLOMBY and STEVE KATZ. 
  
BOBBY COLOMBY
When we came back, we were blindsided by, uh, a PRESS conference. 

REPORTER
What’d they tell you about America? About, inside the Iron Curtain?

STEVE KATZ
To see what’s happening over there it’s very hard to describe it in a PRESS conference. It’s very hard to see what these people are living through. 

REPORTER
How does it make you feel of America now? 

BOBBY COLOMBY
Uh, we were affected very deeply as people over there. We were very hung up in criticizing what’s wrong in this country. But you certainly get a new perspective when you see something when you see something that is so much more wrong. 

STEVE KATZ
We sat and, and took questions, which were pretty hostile, you know. “Oh you’re working for the government.”

REPORTER
What made you decide to go?

STEVE KATZ
What made me decide to go? I decided to, I decided to go because I was a musician first rather than a politician. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
You got the sense that they were angry that we did this tour. And you could feel it. 

REPORTER
What’s your response to the State Department---

STEVE KATZ
I just wanted to get that in. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
The State Department, as we found out, you know, we have a, there’s a tendency in this country to say people, government, you know? Well government is a diverse and varied thing. 

REPORTER
Did the State Department put any restrictions…

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
None. 

REPORTER
…before you left?

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Well we went over there with the idea of just how much so-called communist fascism is American propaganda, and just how much of it isn’t. I found that the propaganda is pretty damn close to the truth. It’s scary. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I think we were all in shock, but I think, I think we knew. I think we knew at that point that, uh, this had not gone well. 

TIM NAFTALI
They’re now ambassadors of a more nuanced view of the Cold War. Well they didn’t ask to be. They didn’t expect to be, and nobody wanted to listen to them when they came back. 


DAVID FELTON
Actually I had completely forgotten about that story. It was so smarmy a headline I said, “Yeah that sounds like me.” It was one of the first stories I did when I started out at Rolling Stone magazine, and I started to specialize in covering the underground and what we called it was a cultural revolution. I was really young then, and of course I was so egotistical. This is from September 3rd, 1970, and the headline is Blood, Sweat & Tears turned backs on Communism. Just arrived from their recent State Department tour, members of Blood, Sweat & Tears indicated at a PRESS conference here they were so overwhelmed by communist police tactics, that only a book and feature length film could adequately exPRESS their shock. “We went over there with the idea of just how much so-called communist fascism is American propaganda” said DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS, the group’s pudgy-faced lead vocalist. That was nasty. It soon became clear that the State Department got its money’s worth. Well, what do I take away from this? That was a kind of a snotty story. I probably took a little liberty with them ‘cause I didn’t think they were part of the cultural revolution, but I see things a lot differently now. Let me just say this about the cultural revolution. I mean some of us just became bigger assholes, and I’m only speaking for myself. 

TIM NAFTALI
Rolling Stone give you the imPRESSion that they’ve somehow be the strong anti-communist. So then people might have thought “Well they were brainwashed. You see, they went on this tour and the U.S. Government brainwashed them. 

DAVID WILD
It just made them look uncool. That’s a worse crime than being a deviant or a heroin addict. To be uncool is punishable by death in rock criticism. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
I had not changed my position in terms of how I felt about what our government was doing. That, I mean that was still the same. But as far as thinking maybe there’s another system of government that’s like way better than our democracy. Maybe it’s really better. It ain’t. It really isn’t. 

DON HECKMAN
That a rock band would identify itself in any way with the present administration suggesting that commercial success had turned their heads in an unfortunate direction. Somewhat odd to hear opinions that I might expect from say a liberal Republican congressman, coming from the members of a premiere rock group. I suggest the possibility that Blood, Sweat & Tears may soon become identifies in the underground as the fascist rock band. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
I really think that, uh, the fact that, that the kids of today are looking to the pop stars for a political, uh, concept is a very good idea because who else is more qualified than a pop star who, who knows as much as he knows about politics. 


NARRATOR
Blood, Sweat & Tears made its first New York appearance since returning from… Eastern Europe at Madison Square Garden, Saturday night, July 25th. Approximately fifteen thousand persons attended the concert, and cheered the group to two encores. Outside the Garden, Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies were picketing the concert. 

TIM NAFTALI
Abbie Hoffman was the most prominent member of the Yippies. They were part of the broad coalition of anti-war demonstrators. Their approach t demonstration was political theatre.  Abbie Hoffman knew how to take a picture. He knew how to, think of him this way, he’s an Instagram artist, before Instagram. You know, he saw the concert by Blood, Sweat & Tears was the moment to get coverage, and get attention for what he believed in and for himself. And so you have basically musical artists being confronted by a performance political artist. 

DAVID FELTON
Oh my God. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
  You’ve seen this part. Here we go, should I hold it longer for you? 

DAVID FELTON
Abbie was handing this out?


STEVE KATZ
Recently Blood, Sweat & Bullshit went on a CIA sponsored tour of East Europe, to bring our rock revolution behind the Iron Curtain. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
  The Central Intelligent Agency’s so lame, is to sabotage governments, unfriendly or neutral, to the, hard to read this word, Pigs, capital letter, in Washington and to create false propaganda about how happy everyone in the good ol’ U.S. of A really is. 

JIM FIELDER
For complicity and spreading such lies and ignoring the obvious racism and imperialism of the pigs they have worked for, Blood, Sweat & Bullshit is guilty of treason. 
 
STEVE KATZ
Is guilty of treason. 

FRED LIPSIUS
In quotes, three exclamation points, treason. 

JIM FIELDER
In the end, it looks like our blood, our sweat and the CIA’s bullshit. Resist, stop buying albums and attending concerts of these pig collaborators. 

DAVID FELTON
I think they have a weak case here. I never though Blood, Sweat & Tears was political in any way, and I don’t think they did anything other than go there. They, they didn’t hold pro-America, pro-Nixon ral-, did they? Were they Nixon supporter? Well this is bullshit. This is bullshit about bullshit. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
Madison Square Garden. We’re playing “Something’s Coming On,” it goes like this. ♪♪ Somethin’ Comin’ on. (Mimics Beats)  ♪♪ And builds and builds and builds.  (Mimics Beats) And then Freddy starts playing. I hear (Claps Hands). Someone throws something from the audience, it hits my right cymbal, and something lands on my floor tom tom, some debris…And it’s horse shit. It’s horse shit..!! Someone threw a bag of horse shit. Freddy’s playing his alto solo and looks at me, I’m going “There’s shit on my drum. There’s shit on my, just play.”


DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
They were quickly ushered out, but it left a, (Chuckles) pardon me, a smell. It, it tainted that concert, and I think the realization that we were in a world of trouble at that point. That going to Eastern Europe was not gonna be forgiven by the counterculture. 


BOBBY COLOMBY
There was a definite anti-Blood, Sweat & Tears sentiment that was palpable. Usually when you’re attacked for your political point of view, it’s from the left or the right. We on the other hand were attacked by both sides. The right was angry with us because we were anti-Vietnam, anti-Government, anti-Nixon, but we were also attacked by the left because of the association with the State Department. 

STEVE KATZ
I felt cancelled because people thought we were something that we weren’t. It made me wanna retreat. I was very, I was, it, it broke my heart actually. It was very, very sad. 


REP. WILLIAM J. SCHERLE
Mister Speaker, the over-burdened American taxpayer is dancing to the acid rock tune of a forty-thousand-dollar tab, courtesy of the elite hierarchy of the exalted State Department. The discotheque diplomats wave the baton of approval on this latest cultural exchange program, when it authorized a travel grant for the rock group Blood, Sweat & Tears. Singer DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS, a Canadian citizen who has lived on the fat of our land for seven of his twenty-nine years, is allowed much more freedom in his assaults on “Uncle Sugar Daddy” who is footing the bill. Pointing to the “P” symbol imprinted on his purple sweatshirt, he said at a State Department reception quote “I don’t happen to wear this by accident. I wore it because I believe in it.” He went on to say the group doesn’t stand for the things Mister Nixon is doing. There is no excuse for this country subsidizing the travel and derisive dribble of an alien who was selected to represent the United States ostentatiously in three captive nations….

STEVE KATZ
It is not sweet music to the American people to hear the harmony of discord being played at their expense. I guess that’s it. 

INTERVIEWER
So how do you react to that?

STEVE KATZ
Oh, I think he’s right. (Chuckles) No, of course, it’s ridiculous. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Oh I[m not gonna give it any kind of reaction whatsoever. It’s dribble. We could hear that every day on television today, can’t we? Silly partisan bologna like that. 

TIM NAFTALI
Congressman Scherle’s complaint Found its way to Henry Kissinger who was the National Security Advisor. Kissinger’s people did a little investigation and Kissinger wrote Nixon a memo. 

HENRY KISSINGER
The tour through communist countries apparently had a constructive impact on the members of the band, who on return reflects more balance perspectives about the United States. Their new outlook was picked up in the PRESS and as a result the radical left, led by Mister Abbie Hoffman, picketed the band’s concert in New York charging that the band had become “Pig Collaborators.”

TIM NAFTALI
Nixon not only read the memo, but had some ideas about what to do with the information contained in the memo and he wrote out instructions at the bottom. 

RICHARD NIXON
K, it might be worthwhile to get the quotes on page three broadly circulated. If a way can be found in addition, to the Reader’s Digest coverage. Buchanan or Huebner might have an idea as to how youth leaders might get the message. 

TIM NAFTALI
This was a lose-lose situation with the band. The band had come back with a different perspective and people were saying “We worried all along you’d become tools of Nixon and look what just happened, you became tools of Nixon.”

BOBBY COLOMBY
We had no choice, we had to do this tour. 

STEVE KATZ
We were blackmailed. It was extortion, was what it was, yeah, yeah, And nobody, nobody’s known about this for years….We were told that David was gonna be losing his green card, because he had like a run in with the police or a, a record in Canada years before, and they were using that as an excuse to kick him out.

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I had a very troubled childhood, spent most of y teen years as a guest of the government, and that’s haunted me ever since. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
So apparently LARRY GOLDBLATT had figured out a way, being Larry, to get his green card back. 

TINA CUNNINGHAM
Larry had this idea, that was to go to the State Department and offer the band in a cultural exchange in some way. It was definitely a quid pro quo, to help David stay in the country, and it worked. 


STEVE KATZ
I was just against doing the whole thing, but I would have had to leave the band. So we had to back David. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
I’m really sorry that my past had brought these problems to the band. I’ve always regretted it. Probably should have listened to Steve and not done that Eastern European tour, because it did hurt us. It hurt us badly. I didn’t realize how much our fan base was rooted in that counterculture revolution. On the other hand if I didn’t, I’d a probably been deported and there wouldn’t have been a Blood, Sweat & Tears so.
 


DONN CAMBERN
Flying back I thought about that whole experience. How glorious it was. When we got back to Los Angeles, I actually sat with my editor and we did, uh, like a rough version in a relatively short period of time. 


Edward Alexander
Dear Mark. I was happy to have your confirmation today on the phone. That you will do everything possible to ensure that the sequences showing militiamen in Romania and Poland, will not be used in the film. 
 
Mark B. Lewis
The initial review in November, 1970 of the film in rough edit form, 
two and a half hours in length, by Department and USIA officers was disappointing and recommendation for the purpose of achieving a balance and good film were forwarded to Mister Klein. 


DONN CAMBERN
The producer was in a position that he had to satisfy the State Department. The State Department said “We really want a one-hour film we can show here in the states, and also in Eastern Europe to fortify the link that was growing between the east countries and the west. We started working on it, and I didn’t like at all what was happening to it. It was turning into a travel log, and not a very good travel log. The State Department had the reins, definitely had the reins. They really ran the making of the film. I couldn’t stand it, because it wasn’t anything what I had envisioned. When I saw the finished film, I was personally heartbroken. I didn’t show it, but I was. I was also quite angry that all of this film that we had all worked so hard to get, wasn’t being represented on the screen. Hmm. 

STEVE KATZ
As far as it not coming out, never heard anything. 

JIM FIELDER
Got me. It just kinda got shelved. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
So the independent film company shot sixty-five hours of footage. Where it went, I have no idea. No one knows where it is. 

TINA CUNNINGHAM
The State Department had the final say as to the release and distribution. The fact that it would reflect poorly on Romania, on a relationship with that country, you would make sense for the Department of State to say, “Just stick it in a drawer, and let it cool off.”

TIM NAFTALI
Maybe the film was viewed as threatening to détente with Romania, and someone got to someone. There are a lot of people who had an interest in that film never seeing the light of day.

DAN KLEIN
My father, Mel Klein, was the executive Producer of The Lost Blood, Sweat & Tears Documentary. It’s fifty years ago but my recollection was that, and this is my mother’s recollection also, is that the State Department took all the film, all the audio, took what they thought was everything, um, and that was that. 

BOBBY COLOMBY
But what’s left is one hour. One hour that was edited for television, it was never shown at all, and was discovered while you guys were making this film. 



DAVID WILD
What goes up must come down. They went up and they came down. It’s a shame because the music is great, but it’s more a moment in time than an institution. 


CLIVE DAVIS
This was such a promising musical group and to have the innovativeness of the musicianship with the distinctive vocal and energy. If they had more hit songs and they stayed together, they could have had enduring success. I mean the combination of hits that they had on the second album was so special and commanding, You say, “Spinning Wheel” “You make me so very happy” And when I die.” We can all sing it. 

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS
Hm-hmm. There’s a loaded question. Well I don’t want it to be remembered as sellouts. We never were, okay. We did what we had to do. Aside that we got sucked into this political maelstrom, the music is what it was all about in that band. 


DONN CAMBERN
The memory that I hold closest is the band itself playing so beautifully. The music so joyful. The players so good. No matter where we were, no matter what concert it was, that it was absolutely thrilling. 


DONN CAMBERN
What happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears , it just wasn’t fair. They really got screwed.