David Clayton-Thomas, lead singer for late-’60s hitmakers Blood, Sweat & Tears, has passed away. The powerhouse Canadian singer who lifted American band Blood, Sweat & Tears to the heights of pop music success, including Grammy awards and one of the biggest selling albums of its time,  No cause of death has been reported. Clayton-Thomas was 84.

The CBC reports that Clayton-Thomas died on Wednesday at St. Michael’s hospital in Toronto. Clayton-Thomas, the son of a British musician mother and a Canadian serviceman father, was born David Henry Thomsett in the English town of Kingston, but he grew up in Toronto. Clayton-Thomas dropped out of school and left home as a teenager. He lived on the street and did serious time for crimes like car theft and vagrancy. In jail, he taught himself to play guitar.

At 21, Clayton-Thomas changed his name and became a regular in Toronto’s Yonge Street music scene, sitting in with the Hawks and singing for bands like the Shays and the Bossmen. In 1966, he moved to the US without a work visa, and he met Blood, Sweat & Tears through the folk singer Judy Collins. Frontman Al Kooper had left the soulful jazz-rock band BS&T after the commercial failure of their 1967 debut album Child Is Father To The Man, and Clayton-Thomas’ barrel-chested bellow turned out to be a good fit, so he became their new lead singer.

Blood, Sweat & Tears’ self-titled album, released in 1968, became one of the biggest sellers of its time and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, beating out notable contenders like Abbey Road, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Johnny Cash At San Quentin. The band performed at Woodstock and achieved a series of chart-topping hits. Their covers of Brenda Holloway’s “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” and Laura Nyro’s “And When I Die” both reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Today, the band is perhaps best remembered for “Spinning Wheel,” another #2 hit, which was an original song written by Clayton-Thomas.

Blood, Sweat & Tears was a product of the late 1960s counterculture but operated as a commercial pop group. In 1970, they toured Communist Eastern Europe, sponsored by Nixon’s State Department, which the band later claimed had “blackmailed” them by threatening to deport David Clayton-Thomas if they did not comply. This incident likely harmed their credibility, as their following albums did not perform well. David Clayton-Thomas left the band in 1972 to pursue solo projects before rejoining five years later. He continued to tour with various versions of Blood, Sweat & Tears for decades and released several independent solo albums later in life.

Check out some of Clayton-Thomas’ work below.