What goes up, must come down.
Spinning wheel, got to go round.
The son of a decorated WWII Canadian soldier and a British woman, David Clayton-Thomas was sleeping in parked cars and abandoned buildings by the time he was 14. A previous inmate of a reformatory left a guitar that Clayton-Thomas picked up, and the rest is history:
- 10 million – copies of Blood, Sweat & Tears, the eponymous album, sold worldwide
- 5 – Grammy Awards the same album won
- 13 – weeks the same album spent at No. 1 on the Billboard top album chart
- 13 – solo albums between 1972 and 2016
- 4 – halls/walks of fame he’s on (Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, Canada’s Walk of Fame)
- 50/50 – odds he was given he’d survive heart surgery, in 2010
I ain’t scared of dyin’ and I don’t really care.
If it’s peace you find by dyin’, well then, let the time be near.
But he didn’t die, and at 76 he’s still writing and performing.
Listen
Read
Edmonton Journal – Sep 2017 article
