Blood, Sweat & Tears rocker David Clayton-Thomas dies at 84

David Clayton-Thomas, the Canadian frontman of Blood, Sweat & Tears, has died aged 84.

The Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter passed away peacefully at a Toronto hospital on Wednesday, his publicist, Eric Alper, said. No cause of death was provided.

Clayton-Thomas is a Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee, known for voicing hits like You've Made Me So Very Happy and Spinning Wheel.

The music legend sold more than 40 million records and helped shape the sound of jazz-rock in a career that started in the streets of Toronto and led to major stages like Woodstock.

As a teen, Clayton-Thomas lived on the streets and passed through a series of jails and reformatories. There he taught himself to play the guitar, finding his passion while performing concerts in jail.

Clayton-Thomas joined the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1968, becoming a crucial members of what became one of most popular groups of the late 1960s.

The same year, the band's self-titled album sold ten million copies worldwide, topping the Billboard chart for seven weeks. It won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, beating the Beatles' Abbey Road.

They had three other signature hits that each reached No 2 on the Billboard Hot 100: You've Made Me So Very Happy, And When I Die, and Clayton-Thomas's own composition, Spinning Wheel.

In 1970, the band became the first rock group to break through the Iron Curtain, touring eastern Europe at the request of the US state department.

A 2023 documentary, What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears", later reported that the Nixon administration had given Clayton-Thomas an ultimatum to go on the tour in exchange for US permanent residency , or be forced to leave the country.

The band faced blowback at the time for associating itself with the administration, particularly from antiwar activists.

Clayton-Thomas left the band in 1972, attributing his departure to exhaustion from years of relentless touring.

He later released more than a dozen solo albums and toured by himself before rejoining the band that brought him to fame in the early 1980s.

Clayton-Thomas is survived by his daughters, Ashleigh Clayton-Thomas and Christine Graham.

A memorial concert celebrating his life and music will be held at a later date, with proceeds benefiting Peacebuilders Canada, a cause he cherished, his publicist said.