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Submitted by Sandy Graham
David Clayton-Thomas and Blood Sweat & Tears – two names that will always be in a musical marriage. A group that were trailblazers in the sixties, with their combination of rock and jazz arrangements that went on to sell almost six million records in three years. The first album has sold over 10 million records worldwide.
But there is so much more to the name, the man and the music of David Clayton-Thomas.
The passion about his singing and his own journey are still a major part of his personality, and he talks about how and where he came from and where he is right now in his career.
The son of a Canadian soldier and an English music student who became a War Bride, Clayton-Thomas was born in England and moved with his family to the Toronto suburb of Willowdale when he was four years old. A troubled relationship with his abusive father led him to run away at age 15. He spent his teen years living on the street and in various reformatories, eventually doing time as a serial offender for vagrancy, petty theft and street fighting.
Singing in his cell earned him fans among his fellow inmates and, after teaching himself to play an abandoned guitar, he was soon performing jailhouse concerts. He was released in 1962 and began performing as Sonny Thomas (later David Clayton-Thomas) on Toronto’s Yonge Street strip, where he developed a reputation as a tough, brawling blues singer. John Lee Hooker became his idol and Ronnie Hawkins his mentor. The music of jazz greats Lenny Breau, Oscar Peterson and Moe Koffman was equally influential.
“Those were hard times for me growing up. I now look back and realize that my Dad was a statistic of WW11, so many men came back damaged and ended up being broken and turning abusive. Unfortunately, I was in that situation, being a bit of a target for that anger, which made me leave on live on the streets. My Mum was wonderful and I am grateful for the musical influences she also gave me growing up. She was always singing and there was always a piano in our house.”
David Clayton-Thomas’s first band, David Clayton-Thomas and The Fabulous Shays (later The Shays), was an R&B outfit that had hits in 1964 with “Out of the Sunshine” and “Walk That Walk,” a rendition of Hooker’s “Boom Boom.” They opened for the Rolling Stones at Maple Leaf Gardens and played the NBC-TV variety program “Hullabaloo” (1965) at the...
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