DESCRIPTION:
Child Is Father to the Man is the debut album by Blood, Sweat & Tears, released in February of 1968.

Widely regarded as a classic fusion of jazz, rock and roll, psychedelia and classical music, Child Is Father to the Man is one of bandleader Al Kooper's most enduring works. The album introduced the idea of the big band to rock and roll and paved the way for such groups as Chicago. Kooper left the band after this album, changing the nature of the group.

Child Is Father to the Man peaked at #47 on Billboard's (North America) Pop Albums chart. It failed to generate any Top 40 singles in the United States, although "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" and "I Can't Quit Her" found some play on progressive rock radio.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 264 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The title is a quotation from a similarly titled poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, slightly misquoting a poem by William Wordsworth called "My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold".

The album was re-released in the UK in 1973, entitled "The First Album" on Embassy Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records (catalogue number EMB 31028) with an identical track listing and the same picture on the front of the sleeve. The rear had new sleeve notes written by English DJ, Noel Edmunds.