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5 East Coast music festivals to hit

By Teta Alim

WASHINGTON — Though sandal weather still feels far away for the D.C. area, spring/summer music festivals are already putting out their lineups and tickets.

There’s no need to stay California dreamin’: Many of the acts playing Coachella will make their way to the East Coast. And those festivals are a bus or train ride away from the D.C. area.

See which festivals have announced their 2018 lineups so far. (The lineup for the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island isn’t out yet, but their website claims tickets are sold out.)

Stay tuned for other festivals that have yet to release their schedules, such as Made in America in Philadelphia, Panorama in New York City and the Roots Picnic also in Philadelphia.

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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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