Child Is Father to the Man


Child Is Father to the Man is the debut album by Blood, Sweat & Tears, released in February 1968. It reached number 47 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart in the United States.

History

A teenaged Al Kooper went to a concert for jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson in 1960. Ferguson's performance served as the catalyst to start a rock band with a horn section. Originally in a band called The Blues Project, Kooper left after band leader Danny Kalb rejected his idea of bringing in a horn section. He then left for the West Coast and found bassist Jim Fielder who believed in the songs that Kooper wrote. Though Kooper had big ideas for his next project, he didn't have the money to bring his ideas to fruition. He then threw a benefit for himself and invited several musicians he previously worked with, such as Judy Collins, Simon & Garfunkel, David Blue, Eric Andersen and Richie Havens. All of the performances were sold out, which led Kooper to believe that the gigs helped him. Unfortunately, the owner of the Cafe Au Go Go added numerous expenses to the gross receipts that the net receipts after the performance wasn't enough to get a plane ticket or a taxi to the airport.
He later called Fielder and convinced him to come to New York. He also asked Bobby Colomby, Anderson and Steve Katz, who was his bandmate in his former band The Blues Project. Colomby called Fred Lipsius and the band placed an ad in The Village Voice for more horn players. Within a month, the band assembled an eight piece which also contained Randy Brecker, Jerry Weiss and Dick Halligan. Kooper then asked John Simon to produce them, after being fresh off from producing Simon & Garfunkel's album Bookends. The album was recorded in two weeks in December 1967. Simon asked all of the members to record their material in one take so he could study songs and make useful suggestions to the arrangements. After a brief promotional tour, Colomby and Katz ousted Kooper from the band, which led to Child is Father to the Man being the only BS&T album on which Kooper ever appeared. The band would later have two number one albums and several Grammys, although Kooper felt they were playing music that he didn't agree with. Despite being asked to leave Blood, Sweat & Tears, Kooper felt everything worked out well for him and the band.

Commercial performance

In the United States Child Is Father to the Man peaked at #47 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. It failed to generate any Top 40 singles, although "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" and "I Can't Quit Her" found some play on progressive rock radio.
In 2012, the album was ranked number 266 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
The title is a quotation from a by Gerard Manley Hopkins, slightly misquoting a poem by William Wordsworth called "My Heart Leaps Up".
The album was re-released in the UK in 1973, entitled "The First Album" on Embassy Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records with an identical track listing and the same picture on the front of the sleeve. The rear had new sleeve notes written by English DJ, Noel Edmonds.

Reception

Writing for AllMusic, critic William Ruhlman wrote of the album:
"Al Kooper's finest work, an album on which he moves the folk-blues-rock amalgamation of the Blues Project into even wider pastures, taking in classical and jazz elements, all without losing the pop essence that makes the hybrid work. This is one of the great albums of the eclectic post-Sgt. Pepper era of the late '60s, a time when you could borrow styles from Greenwich Village contemporary folk to San Francisco acid rock and mix them into what seemed to have the potential to become a new American musical form... This is the sound of a group of virtuosos enjoying itself in the newly open possibilities of pop music. Maybe it couldn't have lasted; anyway, it didn't."

Track listing

  1. "Overture" – 1:32
  2. "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" – 5:57
  3. "Morning Glory" – 4:16
  4. "My Days Are Numbered" – 3:19
  5. "Without Her" – 2:41
  6. "Just One Smile" – 4:38
  7. "I Can't Quit Her" – 3:38
  8. "Meagan's Gypsy Eyes" – 3:24
  9. "Somethin' Goin' On" – 8:00
  10. "House in the Country" – 3:04
  11. "The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes and Freud" – 4:12
  12. "So Much Love"/"Underture" – 4:47

    1994 Master Sound edition bonus tracks (Columbia CK 64214)

  14. "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" –
  15. "Refugee from Yuhupitz " –
  16. "I Can't Quit Her" –
  17. "Morning Glory" –
  18. "Somethin' Going On" –
  19. "The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes and Freud" –

    2000 remastered edition bonus tracks

  21. "Refugee from Yuhupitz " –
  22. "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" –
  23. "The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes and Freud" –

    2012 remastered Limited edition 24k gold bonus tracks (IMPEX IMP8306)

  25. "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know"
  26. "Refugee From Yuhupitz "
  27. "I Can't Quit Her"
  28. "The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes and Freud"

    Personnel

Blood, Sweat & Tears
Additional musicians
Album - Billboard

Later Samples