By Hillel Italie
The Associated Press
June 25, 2026 - 10:14 am
NEW YORK — David Clayton-Thomas, the pb vocalist of Blood, Sweat & Tears whose husky, high-strung tenor connected “Spinning Wheel,” “When I Die” and different hits helped marque the alleged “brass rock” set among the astir fashionable acts of the precocious 1960s, has died astatine property 84.
Spokesperson Eric Alper said that Clayton-Thomas died “peacefully” Wednesday astatine St. Michael’s Hospital successful Toronto. Alper did not mention a circumstantial cause.
Clayton-Thomas was a onetime thoroughfare combatant and petty thief from Canada who concisely became a stone superstar, the beforehand antheral of a nine-member radical that sold millions of records and won 2 Grammys for “Blood, Sweat & Tears,” which bushed retired the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” for champion medium of 1969. Calling retired amid a jazzy parade of horns, keyboards and percussion, Clayton-Thomas’ urgent outcry was a signature dependable of the era, preaching emotion connected the Motown screen “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” a lasting bequest connected Laura Nyro’s “When I Die” and a chill caput connected his ain “Spinning Wheel.” Meanwhile, Blood, Sweat & Tears helped animate a question of horn-led bands, among them Chicago, the Electric Flag and Ten Wheel Drive.
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