Blood Sweat and Tears - 3 (Roy Halee)

After the huge success of their previous album, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 was highly anticipated and it rose quickly to the top of the US album chart. It also yielded two hit singles: a cover of Carole King's "Hi-De-Ho," and "Lucretia MacEvil." However, the album relied heavily on cover material and it received lukewarm reviews (this may also have been influenced by the band's participation in an unpopular U.S. government-sponsored tour of Eastern Europe).  I review on www.allmusic.com said this of this record:  critic William Ruhlman wrote, calling the album "a convincing, if not quite as impressive, companion to their previous hit.  David Clayton-Thomas remained an enthusiastic blues shouter, and the band still managed to put together lively arrangements... although their pretentiousness, on the extended "Symphony/Sympathy for the Devil," and their tendency to borrow other artists' better-known material rather than generating more of their own, were warning signs for the future."  Another Music critic Robert Christgau wrote, "Just figured out how David Clayton-Thomas learned vocal projection: by belching.  That's why when he gets really excited he sounds as if he's about to throw up.  But it's only part of the reason he gets me so excited I feel like I'm about to throw up."

    Not surprisingly - this record was produced by Roy Halee, a top American record producer and engineer, best known for working with Simon and Garfunkel.  Halee grew up on Long Island, New York. His father, also named Roy Halee, provided the singing voice for Mighty Mouse in late 1940s Terrytoonscartoons, as well as the voices of Heckle and Jeckle from 1951 through 1961.  He was best known for producing several albums with Simon and Garfunkel, including the Grammy-winning Bridge Over Troubled Water.  He is mentioned in their 1965 song "A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)", written by Paul Simon.  He has also worked with other groups such as The Byrds, Journey (on their first album Journey), Willie Nile, Laura Nyro, and Blue Angel.  Halee was named to the TEC Awards Hall of Fame in 2001.