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12 DC-area musicians with upcoming shows at local venues

By Teta Alim

WASHINGTON — From spitfire flow to headbanging guitars to turntables, the D.C.-area music scene has something to offer everyone.

Sure, the region gets good traffic from national and international artists who often stop by in D.C. — but the local music scene has many hidden gems and rising stars.

While some musicians made their start in the “DMV” but have since moved, others continue to enrich the D.C. area in various genres. Here are 12 area artists to watch in the coming months around the District.

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David Clayton-Thomas, powerhouse lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears, dies at 84

By The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — David Clayton-Thomas, the lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears, whose husky, high-strung tenor on “Spinning Wheel,” “And When I Die” and other hits helped make the so-called brass rock band among the most popular acts of the late 1960s, has died at age 84. Spokesperson Eric Alper said that Clayton-Thomas died “peacefully” Wednesday at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Alper did not cite a specific cause. Clayton-Thomas was a onetime street fighter and petty thief from Canada who briefly became a rock superstar, the front man of a nine-member group that sold millions of records and won two Grammys for “Blood, Sweat & Tears,” which beat out the Beatles' “Abbey Road” for best album of 1969. Calling out amid a jazzy parade of horns, keyboards and percussion, Clayton-Thomas’ urgent shout was a signature voice of the era, preaching love on the Motown cover “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” a lasting legacy on Laura Nyro’s “And When I Die” and a cool head on his own “Spinning Wheel.” Meanwhile, Blood, Sweat & Tears helped inspire a wave of horn-led bands, among them Chicago, the Electric Flag and Ten Wheel Drive. “A lot of the guys (in Blood, Sweat & Tears) would play a Broadway show matinee, then go up to Harlem and play Latin music or R&B and funk at night, or come down to the Village and play pure jazz the next night,” Clayton-Thomas told bestclassicbands.com in 2023. “I was just a blues player: give me three chords and I’ve got a song.”
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