I was living in the Past last week when I listened to Devil With a Blue Dress On and Blood, Sweat & Tears: Greatest Hits.
“Ryder was the last person to perform with Otis Redding; they performed the song “Knock On Wood“, on December 9, 1967, in Cleveland, Ohio, on a local TV show called Upbeat. Redding and four members of his touring band, The Bar-Kays, died in a plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin the following day, December 10, 1967.” (Wikipedia). Ryder withdrew from music in 1973 after experiencing throat trouble,
“Blood, Sweat & Tears (also known as “BS&T“) was an American jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967, noted for combining a brass section with rock band instrumentation. BS&T has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a wide range of musical styles. Their sound has merged rock, pop and R&B/soul music with big band jazz. The Canadian lead singer David Clayton-Thomas was added to the group in 1968 and stayed until 1972, marking their most successful period.” (Wikipedia).
I enjoy the Blood, Sweat & Tears sound with David Clayton-Thomas’s distinctive voice. Clayton-Thomas died at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, on 24 June 2026, at the age of 84. If you like music with a lot of brass–like Chicago’s music–BS&T delivers that style of music. Back in 1970, “And When I Die“, “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy“, and “Spinning Wheel” hit the Hot 100 and all three songs peaked at number 2 for a total of thirteen weeks.
Needless to say, our local Oldies radio station rarely plays Mitch Ryder or Blood, Sweat & Tears music anymore. But I still have these CD collections and they sound wonderful to me! Are you a fan of Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels and/ Blood, Sweat & Tears? Any favorite songs? GRADE: B+ (for both)
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | Devil With A Blue Dress On & Good Golly Miss Molly | 3:32 | |
| 2 | Little Latin Lupe Lu | 3:10 | |
| 3 | Sticks And Stones | 2:39 | |
| 4 | I Like It Like That | 2:47 | |
| 5 | Too Many Fish In The Sea & Three Little Fishes | 3:02 | |
| 6 | Sock It To Me-Baby | 3:12 | |
| 7 | Takin’ All I Can Get | 3:21 | |
| 8 | You Get Your Kicks | 3:09 | |
| 9 | Just A Little Bit | 2:41 | |
| 10 | Break-Out | 3:17 |
TRACK LIST:
| You’ve Made Me So Very Happy | 3:26 | ||
| I Can’t Quit Her | 3:38 | ||
| Go Down Gamblin’ | 2:46 | ||
| Hi-De-Ho | 4:05 | ||
| Sometimes In Winter | 3:08 | ||
| And When I Die | 3:26 | ||
| Spinning Wheel | 2:39 | ||
| Lisa, Listen To Me | 2:58 | ||
| I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know | 5:58 | ||
| Lucretia Mac Evil | 3:07 | ||
| God Bless The Child | 5:57 |
You must not have satellite radio, George. I hear “Devil With the Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly” on the Sixties stations quite often. As for BS&T, I love them and saw them once at a small club in California (tbh, it was more like “David Clayton Thomas & the Blood Sweat and Tears Experience”, lol). My two favorite BS&T songs with DCT are “Go Down Gambling” and “Lucretia McEvil”, but my very favorite BS&T song is their early rather atypical “Sometimes in Winter” with its melancholy downbeat sound and equally downbeat lyrics. Love it!
Deb, I may have to dig out my old BS&T CDs to listen to those songs you love! When I’m driving around listening to Sirius/XM Radio, I’m mostly listening to “Watercolors” Channel 68. I need soothing music when I’m driving because of all the crazy people on e-bikes and electric scooters making the roads dangers. Plus, none of them wear helmets!
Good stuff, both.
Jerry, Mitch Ryder and BS&T got a lot of radio airplay back in the day. I always had my transistor radio with me so I heard those songs hundreds of times!
I have always loved Blood, Sweat & Tears, playing their albums frequently back in the day and still occasionally even now. I love their takes on Laura Nyro, and their versions of Traffic songs. Let me check what I have in my Favorites playlist: And When I Die, 40,000 Headmen, God Bless the Child, I Can’t Quit Her, Snow Queen/Maiden Voyage (a Goffin/King and Herbie Hancock combo), So Long Dixie, Sometimes in Winter, Spinning Wheel. Not a considered list of favorites and very incomplete, but what I grabbed when making my stupidly long (1476 songs, 113 hours) Favorites playlist.
(Just for fun, let me see who the first dozen or so songs are by on this Favorites playlist: The Band, Rufus Wainwright, the Beach Boys, Toto, Eric Clapton, Parton/Ronstadt/Harris, Genesis, Phil Collins, Jefferson Starship, Steely Dan, Allison Moorer, U.K., Fleetwood Mac, Strawbs, Meghan Trainor, Jimi Hendrix. The songs are in alphabetical order, so that’s Acadian Driftwood through All Along the Watchtower.)
Jeff, that’s an impressive Playlist! Between you and Deb writing about your favorite BS&T songs, I really have to play my BS&T CDs…as soon as I find them! I’d listen to your TOP DOZEN songs, too!
Yes. We saw Mitch Ryder once years ago but don’t remember when. Saw BS&T at the Fillmore East on April 11, 1969 with Albert King and Jethro Tull. We also saw them at a Rock & Roll revival show in 1987 and at a free concert in Brooklyn College (moved indoors because of rain) in the summer of 1990.
You can’t go wrong with Billie Holliday (God Bless the Child) or Laura Nyro (And When I Die).
Jeff, I listen to Laura Nyro frequently. She’s a gifted singer/songwriter!
I enjoy those songs. I rarely listen to music as I mostly listen to books on CD in the car, having a kind friend who shares. I do find my mind wanders sometimes and then I’ll put on a music CD, mostly my 60s favorites or the boy from oz soundtrack
Maggie, your Kind Find has a box of audiobooks ready to ship off to you for Christmas. You’ll have plenty to listen to in 2027!
When I saw Bruce Springsteen years ago, I think Devil in a Blue Dress was one of the encore songs. If people weren’t standing already, they were then.
Just a comment – if you’re a rocker, stay out of planes after Wisconsin gigs.
A friend saw Springsteen in the early 1980s. When he started “Devil With the Blue Dress On”, he pulled a little girl (wearing a blue dress) out of the audience (she was about 8 or so, obviously there with her parents) to dance on stage with him.
Deb, I remember that Springsteen 1984 MTV video when he picks a girl out of the crowd to dance with him. But that girl was a 20-year-old Courteney Cox.
Beth, I think I have that version of “Devil in a Blue Dress” on one of my Live Springsteen CDs. I managed to make in it in and out of the Madison Airport over the years.
Fond of these bands as I was rediscovering ’60s jazz and rock in the late ’70s and ’80s and almost any rock band that used jazz influences cleverly caught my ear.
Todd, I liked jazz influences, too. I especially like Steely Dan’s music for that reason.
I like BS&T, but not so much Mitch Ryder! He’s a bit frantic for my tastes!
Bob, Mitch Ryder’s singing career was cut short by medical issues.