The Blues Brothers
are a Grammy Award-nominated American blues and soul revivalist band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as part of a musical sketch on Saturday Night Live
. Belushi and Aykroyd, respectively in character as lead vocalist "Joliet" Jake Blues and harpist/vocalist Elwood Blues, fronted the band, which was composed of well-known and respected musicians. The band made its debut as the musical guest on the April 22, 1978, episode of Saturday Night Live
.
The band began to take on a life beyond the confines of the television screen, releasing an album, Briefcase Full of Blues
, in 1978, and then having a Hollywood film, The Blues Brothers
, created around its characters in 1980.
After the death of Belushi in 1982, the Blues Brothers have continued to perform with a rotation of guest singers and other band members. The original band reformed in 1988 for a world tour and again in 1998 for a sequel to the film, Blues Brothers 2000
. They make regular appearances at musical festivals worldwide.
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THE BLUES BROTHERS REVUE TICKETS
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Band members
Original lineup
While not all members appeared in the original film, the full band included:
- "Joliet" Jake E. Blues – vocals
- Elwood J. Blues – harmonica, vocals
- Steve "The Colonel" Cropper – lead and rhythm guitar (former Booker T & the M.G.'s)
- Donald "Duck" Dunn – bass guitar (former Booker T & the M.G.'s)
- Murphy Dunne – keyboards (brought in to act in the film due to Paul Shaffer's commitment to perform with Gilda Radner in Gilda Live!
, toured with the band in the summer of 1980)
- Willie "Too Big" Hall – drums, percussion (formerly of the Bar-Kays, Isaac Hayes' band, appears in the movie)
- Steve "Getdwa" Jordan – drums, percussion (Saturday Night Live Band, appears only on the albums)
- Birch "Crimson Slide" Johnson - trombone
- Tom "Bones" Malone – trombone, trumpet, saxophone (Saturday Night Live Band)
- "Blue" Lou Marini – saxophone (Saturday Night Live Band)
- Matt "Guitar" Murphy – lead and rhythm guitar (Howlin' Wolf, other artists)
- Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin – trumpet (Saturday Night Live Band)
- Paul "The Shiv" Shaffer – keyboards, arranger
- Tom "Triple Scale" Scott – saxophone (doesn't appear in the movie, though his saxophone can still be heard on the soundtrack)
Other members
At various times, the following have been part of the act:
- Zee Blues – vocals
- "Mighty Mack" McTeer – vocals
- Buster Blues – harmonica, vocals (acted by J. Evan Bonifant in Blues Brothers 2000
, actual harmonica recorded by John Popper)
- Cabel "Cab" Chamberlain - vocals
- Cab Calloway – vocals
- Larry "T" Thurston – vocals
- Eddie "Knock on Wood" Floyd – vocals
- Sam "Soul Man" Moore - vocals
- Tommy "Pipes" McDonnell – harmonica, vocals
- Rob "The Honeydripper" Paparozzi – harmonic vocals
- Leon "The Lion" Pendarvis – piano, vocals, arranger
- Danny "G-Force" Gottlieb – drums
- Jimmy "Jimmy B" Biggins – saxophone
- Anthony "Rusty" Cloud – keyboards
- Birch "Crimson Slide" Johnson – trombone
- Eric "The Red" Udel – bass
- John "Smokin" Tropea – guitar
- Lee "Funky Time" Finkelstein – drums
- Steve Potts – drums
- Anton Fig - Drums
- Larry "Trombonius Maximus" Farrell – trombone
- Alto Reed - saxophone
- Jonny "The Rock & Roll Doctor" Rosch - vocals, harmonica
Band history
Origins
The genesis of the Blues Brothers was a January 17, 1976,
Saturday Night Live
skit. In it, "
Howard Shore and his All-Bee Band" play the
Slim Harpo song "
I'm a King Bee," with Belushi singing and Aykroyd playing
harmonica, dressed in the bee costumes they wore for the "Killer Bees" sketch.
Following tapings of
SNL
, it was popular among cast members and the weekly hosts to attend Aykroyd's Holland Tunnel Blues bar, which he had rented not long after joining the cast. Dan and John filled a jukebox with songs from many different artists such as
Sam and Dave and
punk band
The Viletones. John bought an amplifier and they kept some musical instruments there for anyone who wanted to jam. It was here that Dan wrote a lot of the initial story draft of the
Blues Brothers
movie, better known as the "tome" because it contained so many pages.
It was also at the bar that Aykroyd introduced Belushi to the
blues. An interest soon became a fascination and it wasn't long before the two began singing with local blues bands. Jokingly, SNL band leader
Howard Shore suggested they call themselves "The Blues Brothers." In an April 1988 interview in the Chicago Sun-Times, Aykroyd said the Blues Brothers act borrowed from Sam & Dave and others—"Well obviously the duo thing and the dancing, but the hats came from John Lee Hooker. The suits came from the concept that when you were a jazz player in the 40's, 50's 60's, to look straight, you had to wear a suit".
Belushi's budding interest in the blues solidified in October 1977 when he was in
Eugene,
Oregon, filming
National Lampoon's Animal House
. He went to a local hotel to hear 25-year-old blues singer/harmonica player
Curtis Salgado. After the show, Belushi and Salgado talked about the blues for hours. Belushi found Salgado's enthusiasm infectious. In an interview at the time with the
Eugene Register-Guard
he said:
I was growing sick of rock and roll, it was starting to bore me...and I hated disco, so I needed some place to go. I hadn't heard much blues before. It felt good.
Salgado lent him some albums by
Floyd Dixon,
Charles Brown,
Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and others. Belushi was hooked.
[1]
Belushi began to appear with Salgado on stage, singing the
Floyd Dixon song "Hey, Bartender" on a few occasions, and using Salgado's humorous alternate lyrics to "I Don't Know":
Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.
These lyrics were used again for the band's debut performance on
SNL
.
Band formation
With the help of pianist-arranger
Paul Shaffer, Belushi and Aykroyd started assembling a collection of studio talents to form their own band. These included
SNL
band members, saxophonist "Blue"
Lou Marini and trombonist-saxophonist
Tom Malone, who had previously played in
Blood, Sweat & Tears. At Shaffer's suggestion guitarist
Steve Cropper and bassist
Donald "Duck" Dunn, the powerhouse combo from
Booker T and the M.G.'s and subsequently almost every hit out of Memphis'
Stax Records during the 1960s, were signed as well.
Belushi wanted a powerful
trumpet player and a hot blues guitarist, so
Juilliard-trained trumpeter
Alan Rubin was brought in, as was guitarist
Matt Murphy, who had performed with many blues legends.
For the brothers' look, Belushi borrowed
John Lee Hooker's trademark
Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and
soul patch.
Their style was fresh and in many ways, different from prevailing musical trends: A very raw and "live" sound compared to the increasing use of sound synthesis and vocal-dominated music of the late 1970s and 80s.
The sound
While the music of the Blues Brothers is based on R&B, blues, and
soul, it also drew heavily on
rock and
jazz elements, usually taking a blues standard and bringing a rock sound and style to it. The band could be drawn into three sections: the four-man horn section, the traditional rock instruments of the five-man rhythm section, and the two singing brothers. The sound of the band was a synthesis of two different traditions: the horn players all came from the clean, precise, jazz-influenced sound of
New York City; while the rhythm section came from the grittier soul and blues sound of
Chicago and
Memphis. The success of this meld was due both to Shaffer's arrangements and to the musicians' talents.
In
Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers
, a 1998
documentary included on some
DVD editions of the first
Blues Brothers
film, Cropper noted that some of his peers thought that he and the other musicians backing the Blues Brothers were
selling out to Hollywood or using a gimmick to make some quick money. Cropper responded by stating that he thought Belushi was as good as (or even better than) many of the singers he had backed; he also noted that Belushi had, early in his career, briefly been a professional drummer, and had an especially keen sense of
rhythm.
Albums, early gigs, character backgrounds
The Blues Brothers recorded their first album,
Briefcase Full of Blues
, in 1978 while opening for comedian
Steve Martin at
Los Angeles' Universal Amphitheatre. The album reached #1 on the
Billboard 200, went
double platinum, and featured
Top 40 hit recordings of
Sam and Dave's "
Soul Man" and
The Chips' "
Rubber Biscuit."
The album liner notes fleshed out the fictional back story of Jake and Elwood, having them growing up in a
Roman Catholic orphanage in
Calumet City, Illinois [2] and learning the blues from a janitor named Curtis. Their
blood brotherhood was sealed by cutting their middle fingers with a string said to come from the
guitar of
Elmore James.
[3]
The band, along with the
New Riders of the Purple Sage, opened for the
Grateful Dead for the final show at
Winterland, New Year's Eve 1978.
With the film, came the
soundtrack album, which was the band's first studio album. "
Gimme Some Lovin'" was a Top 40 hit and the band toured to promote the film, which led to a third album (and second live album),
Made in America
, recorded at the Universal Amphitheatre in 1980. The track "Who's Making Love" peaked at No 39. It was the last recording the band would make with Belushi's Jake Blues.
Belushi's wife, Judith Jacklin, and his friend, Tino Insana, wrote a book,
Blues Brothers: Private
, that further fleshed out the Blues Brothers' universe and gave a back story for the first movie.
In 1981,
Best of the Blues Brothers
was released, with a previously unreleased track, a version of
The Soul Survivors'
Expressway To Your Heart
, and alternate live recordings of
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
and
Rubber Biscuit
; this album would be the first of several compilations and hits collections issued over the years. A 1998 British CD compilation,
The Complete Blues Brothers
, exclusively features
Lamont Cranston's Excuse Moi Mon Cheri
, from the L.A.
Briefcase
recordings, originally available only as the
b-side to the
Soul Man
45 rpm single.
On
March 5,
1982, John Belushi died in
Hollywood of an accidental overdose of
heroin and cocaine.
After John Belushi's death, updated versions of the Blues Brothers have performed on
SNL
and for charitable and political causes. Aykroyd has been accompanied by
Jim Belushi and
John Goodman in character as "Zee" Blues and "Mighty Mack" McTeer. The copyright owners have also authorized some copycat acts to perform under the Blues Brothers name; one such act performs regularly at the
Universal Studios Florida theme park in
Orlando,
Florida and
Universal Studios Hollywood.
In 1997, an animated sitcom with Jake and Elwood was planned, but scrapped after only eight episodes were produced.
[4]
To promote
Blues Brothers 2000
(1998), Dan Aykroyd, James Belushi and John Goodman performed at the halftime of
Super Bowl XXXI, along with
ZZ Top and
James Brown. The performance was preceded with a faux news report stating the Blues Brothers had escaped custody and were on their way to the
Louisiana Superdome.
Aykroyd has continued to be an active proponent of blues music and parlayed this avocation into foundation and partial ownership of the
House of Blues franchise, a national chain of nightclubs.
John Belushi's brother,
James Belushi, toured with the band for a short time as "Zee Blues," and recorded the album,
Blues Brothers & Friends: Live from House of Blues
, with Dan Aykroyd but he didn't appear in
Blues Brothers 2000
. It's rumored he was approached to play not the role of "Mighty Mack" (played by
John Goodman), but the role of the local Sheriff "Cab" Chamberlain (which eventually went to
Joe Morton). Jim would later reunite with Aykroyd to record yet another album, not as the Blues Brothers but as themselves:
Belushi/Aykroyd - Have Love Will Travel
(Big Men-Big Music).
In 2004, the musical,
The Blues Brothers Revival
, premiered in Chicago. The story was about Elwood trying to rescue Jake from an eternity in
limbo/
purgatory. The musical was written and composed with approval and permission from both the John Belushi estate (including his widow, Judith Belushi-Pisano) and Dan Aykroyd.
The Blues Brothers featuring Elwood and Zee regularly perform at
House of Blues venues and various casinos across North America. They are usually backed by
James Belushi's Sacred Hearts Band. The rest of the Blues Brothers Band tours the world regularly. The only original members still in the band are
Steve Cropper,
Lou Marini, and
Alan Rubin. The lead singer is Jonny "The Rock & Roll Doctor" Rosch, and they are frequently joined by
Eddie Floyd.
Aykroyd currently reprises his character, Elwood Blues, as the host of the weekly
House of Blues Radio Hour, heard nationwide on the
Dial Global Radio Network.
Films
The Blues Brothers
In
1980,
The Blues Brothers
, directed by
John Landis, was released. Featuring epic
car chases involving the
Bluesmobile and musical performances by
Aretha Franklin,
James Brown,
Cab Calloway,
Ray Charles and
John Lee Hooker, the story is set in and around
Chicago,
Illinois. It is a tale of
redemption for the
paroled
convict Jake Blues and his brother Elwood as they decide to take on a "mission from
God" and reform their blues band in order to raise funds to save the
Catholic orphanage where they grew up. Along the way, the brothers are targeted by a "mystery woman" (
Carrie Fisher) and chased by the
Illinois State Police, a
country and western band called the Good Ol' Boys, and "Illinois
Nazis." The film grossed $57 million domestically in its theatrical release, making it the 10th highest grossing movie of 1980, and grossed an additional $58 million in foreign release.
[5] It is the second-highest grossing
film based on a "Saturday Night Live" sketch and ninth-highest grossing
musical film.
Blues Brothers 2000
With Landis again directing, the sequel to
The Blues Brothers
was made in 1998. It fared considerably worse than its predecessor with fans and critics, though it is more ambitious in terms of musical performances by the band and has a more extensive roster of guest artists than the first film. The story picks up 18 years later with Elwood being released from prison, and learning that his brother has died. He is once again prevailed upon to save some orphans, and with a 10-year-old boy named
Buster Blues (
J. Evan Bonifant) in tow, Elwood again sets about the task of reuniting his band. He recruits some new singers, Mighty Mack (
John Goodman) and Cab (
Joe Morton), a policeman who was Curtis' son. All the original band members are found, as well as some performers from the first film, including
Aretha Franklin and
James Brown. There are dozens of other guest performers, including
Eric Clapton,
Steve Winwood,
Junior Wells,
Lonnie Brooks,
Eddie Floyd,
Wilson Pickett,
Isaac Hayes,
Sam Moore,
Taj Mahal and
Jonny Lang,
Blues Traveler, as well as an all-star
supergroup led by
B.B. King called
the Louisiana Gator Boys. On the run from the police,
Russian mafia and a
racist militia, the band eventually ends up in
Louisiana, where they enter a
battle of the bands overseen by a
voodoo practitioner named Queen Moussette (
Erykah Badu). During a song by the Blues Brothers (a
Caribbean number called "Funky Nassau"), a character played by
Paul Shaffer asks to cut in on keyboards, which Murph allows. This marks the first time in a film that the Blues Brothers play with their original keyboardist.
Video games
A video game involving the characters was made for various
platforms by
Titus. The same company produced another video game for the
Amiga,
Game Boy,
PC and
Super NES. A
Nintendo 64 game titled
Blues Brothers 2000
was also released.
The Blues Brothers Bar
The Blues Brothers Bar
was an illegal basement tavern operated on
Wells Street In Chicago's
Old Town in the 1970s and 1980s which was started by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. The Bar was down the street from
The Second City theater. In the DVD commentary of the film
Thief (a film shot in Chicago in 1981),
James Caan mentions the bar. The bar was run by a college friend whom Belushi met at
College of DuPage, the friend often operated as a bouncer. As the bar was unlicensed, alcohol was bought by the purchase of 'tickets' which were then traded to the bartender for the drinks. The bar was discovered by authorities in 1982 and was forced to close shortly after.
A bar by a similar title was built in
Mount Prospect, IL (referenced in the movie as the town where Elwood purchased the car) opened in 2007.
In popular culture
{{#ifeq:
|Category:Articles with trivia sections {{#ifexist:Category:Articles with trivia sections from June 2009
There have been many takeoffs and parodies of the Blues Brothers, most notably in the
Chicago area.
Theatre
The Whitehall Theatre in
London,
England, staged
A Tribute to the Blues Brothers
in 1996. What was originally a six-week run extended into 46 and was staged on and off till 2001. Guest-stars included
Antonio Fargas (best known for the part of informant Huggy Bear in
Starsky and Hutch
) singing
Minnie The Moocher
.
[6]
Films and television
- In 1997, UPN ordered thirteen episodes of The Blues Brothers Animated Series
. The order was pulled shortly afterward, and only two episodes were fully completed. Peter Aykroyd provided the voice of Elwood and Jim Belushi provided the voice of Jake.
Video games
- The Blues Brothers is an arcade game released in 1990. It had a sequel in 1993 called The Blues Brothers : The Jukebox Adventure. Both games were edited by Titus and developed by Image Works.
- There is also a Blues Brothers 2000 video game available for Nintendo 64. [7]
Music
- One of the seasonal musical acts at Disneyland is the Brass Brothers. The band plays R&B music in suits, fedoras, and sunglasses inspired by the Blues Brothers.
Other media
- Manga-artist Kenichi Sonoda is an avid Blues Brothers fan and has included references to it in many of his works. Most notably, in his manga Gunsmith Cats, which is set in Chicago the main character's car bears the familiar license plate number BDR 529. Also, his early anime Riding Bean, also set in Chicago showed several car chases inspired by the movie, involving massive police car pileups.
- In the Terry Pratchett book, Soul Music
, Cliff tells Buddy that no-one can stop them because they are on "A Mission from Glod," when they are stealing a piano for their band. Glod is a character in their band "The Band with Rocks In." Further References abound in the novel, including ""Anyone else fancy a hot dog? Hot dog? [...] Hot dog? Right. That's three hot d--", obviously parodied from an attempted purchase of orange whips.
- Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood house outdoor show attractions featurng the Blues Brothers (Titled The Blues Brothers Live
in Florida, and The Blues Brothers R&B Revue
in Hollywood). In the attractions, the Blues Brothers perform classic Rock and Soul songs. There is also a Christmas version of the show in which they sing Holiday classic songs.
- Jake and Elwood appear in Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne's alternate history novel Back in the USSA
as thrifty musicians/thieves in a post-communist United States.
Discography
- 1978 – Briefcase Full of Blues
(Atlantic)
- 1980 – The Blues Brothers: Music from the Soundtrack
(Atlantic)
- 1980 – Made in America
(Atlantic)
- 1981 – Best of the Blues Brothers
(Atlantic)
- 1983 – Dancin' Wid Da Blues Brothers
(Atlantic)
- 1988 – Everybody Needs the Blues Brothers
- 1990 – The Blues Brothers Band Live in Montreux
(recorded on July 12, 1989 at the Montreux Casino with Eddie Floyd and Larry "T" Thurston, vocals) [8]
- 1992 – Red, White & Blues
(Turnstyle) [9]
- 1992 – The Definitive Collection
(Atlantic/WEA)
- 1995 – The Very Best Of The Blues Brothers
(Atlantic)
- 1997 – Blues Brothers & Friends: Live from House of Blues
(A&M)
- 1998 – Blues Brothers 2000: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
- 1998 – The Blues Brothers Complete
(Atlantic) [10]
- 2003 – The Essentials
(Warner Strategic) [11]
References
- This is detailed in an article in the January 4, 1979, edition of the ''Eugene Register-Guard''.
- The script has a typo, referring to the location of the St. Helen of the Blessed Shroud Orphanage as being in Calumed City...it is properly Calumet City.
- Biography of the Blues Brothers from their album, A Briefcase Full of Blues, retrieved on November 30, 2006.
- "The Blues Brothers Animated Series" (1997) - Episode list
- Box Office Mojo
- http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~pringle/bluesbros/tribute.html
- http://www.amazon.com/Blues-Brothers-2000-Nintendo-64/dp/B00002SW77
- The Blues Brothers Live in Montreaux, BluesBrothersCentral.com (retrieved on January 8, 2007).
- Red, White & Blues, BluesBrothersCentral.com (retrieved on January 8, 2007).
- The Blues Brothers Complete, BluesBrothersCentral.com (retrieved on January 8, 2007).
- The Essentials, BluesBrothersCentral.com (retrieved on January 8, 2007).