Writing for AllMusic, critic William Ruhlman wrote of the album:
Reception Professional ratings Review scores The rear had new sleeve notes written by English DJ, Noel Edmonds. The album was re-released in the UK in 1973, entitled "The First Album" on Embassy Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records (catalogue number EMB 31028) with an identical track listing and the same picture on the front of the sleeve. The title is a quotation from a similarly titled poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, slightly misquoting a poem by William Wordsworth called " My Heart Leaps Up". In 2012, the album was ranked number 266 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. 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 the United States Child Is Father to the Man peaked at #47 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. Despite being asked to leave Blood, Sweat & Tears, Kooper felt everything worked out well for him and the band. 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. 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. 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. The album was recorded in two weeks in December 1967.
Kooper then asked John Simon to produce them, after being fresh off from producing Simon & Garfunkel's album Bookends. Within a month, the band assembled an eight piece which also contained Randy Brecker, Jerry Weiss and Dick Halligan. Colomby called Fred Lipsius and the band placed an ad in The Village Voice for more horn players. He also asked Bobby Colomby, Anderson and Steve Katz, who was his bandmate in his former band The Blues Project. He later called Fielder and convinced him to come to New York. Although the performances sold out, the owner of the Cafe Au Go Go added numerous expenses to the gross receipts that the net receipts after the performance were not enough to get a plane ticket or a taxi to the airport. 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. Though Kooper had big ideas for his next project, he didn't have the money to bring his ideas to fruition. He then left for the West Coast and found bassist Jim Fielder who believed in the songs that Kooper wrote. Originally in a band called The Blues Project, Kooper left after band leader Danny Kalb rejected his idea of bringing in a horn section.
AlbumbeschreibungAs a teenager, Al Kooper went to a concert for jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and this experience inspired Kooper to start a rock band with a horn section. Mehr sehen Your browser does not support the audio element. © William Ruhlmann & Bruce Eder /TiVo Weitere Informationen It was a repertoire to build a career on, and Blood, Sweat & Tears did exactly that, although they never came close to equaling this album. Not only did the album contain three songs that neared the top of the charts as singles - "Happy," "Spinning Wheel," and "And When I Die" - but the whole album, including an arrangement of "God Bless the Child" and the radical rewrite of Traffic's "Smiling Phases," was wonderfully accessible. Kooper was even still present as an arranger on two tracks, notably the initial hit "You've Made Me So Very Happy." But the second BS&T, under the aegis of producer James William Guercio, was a less adventurous unit, and, as fronted by Clayton-Thomas, a far more commercial one.
They had certain similarities to the original: the musical mixture of classical, jazz, and rock elements was still apparent, and the interplay between the horns and the keyboards was still occurring, even if those instruments were being played by different people. Arguably, the Blood, Sweat & Tears that made this self-titled second album - consisting of five of the eight original members and four newcomers, including singer David Clayton-Thomas - was really a different group from the one that made Child Is Father to the Man, which was done largely under the direction of singer/songwriter/keyboard player/arranger Al Kooper. The difference between Blood, Sweat & Tears and the group's preceding long-player, Child Is Father to the Man, is the difference between a monumental seller and a record that was "merely" a huge critical success. Kaufen Sie dieses Album und laden Sie es in verschiedenen Formaten herunter, je nach Ihren Bedürfnissen.