Reconsidering The Blues Brothers

A few weeks ago, I was placing an order on Discogs for a couple of CDs and the seller required a certain dollar amount before taking an order, so I was running through their selection to find a CD to fill the gap.  While going through his inventory, I ran across The Definitive Selection from The Blues Brothers, which brought a smile to my face and I decided to add it to my order because it brought back a lot of memories from my younger days.

When I was a teenager, I was visiting some of my relatives in Baton Rouge for a family reunion.  My family sort of dispersed after the get-together and I ended up staying overnight with some of my relatives, who were in their twenties and, therefore, cool.  Being a Saturday night, we tuned in to watch Saturday Night Live, which was in its third season and was still all the rage.  

While there was a lot to enjoy in this episode (hosted by Steve Martin, one of my favorites), the thing I remember most was the musical entertainment for the night, which happened to be The Blues Brothers, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, introduced by Paul Shaffer, playing musical impressario Don Kirshner, and backed by this incredible band.  They played two songs, Floyd Dixon's "Hey Bartender" and Willie Mabon's "I Don't Know." 

The look of the "brothers" (the hats, Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, and soul patches were "borrowed" from John Lee Hooker), the fantastic musicians behind them, and those cool songs unlike anything I'd ever heard really got my attention.  Of course, at this time, my experience with the blues was limited to appearances by B.B. King on the Tonight Show, so I was intrigued.  I wasn't aware that Belushi and Aykroyd had performed previously on SNL in early 1976 as Howard Shore and His All-Bee Band, dressed as bees, performing "I'm A King Bee."

Aykroyd rented a blues bar not far from the SNL studios and soon got Belushi interested in the blues.  Aykroyd was from Canada and had played harmonica from time to time with one of Canada's best-known blues bands at the time, the Downchild Blues Band, and Belushi met blues singer Curtis Salgado while filming Animal House on the West Coast and began appearing with him onstage during Salgado's shows.

I later found out more about the band as well.  Guitarists Steve Cropper and Matt "Guitar" Murphy became my favorite guitarists, and Donald "Duck" Dunn, Tom "Bones" Malone, and "Blue" Lou Marini caught my attention as well.  Murphy was one of the blues' finest guitarist, famous for his contributions to recordings from Memphis Slim and, later, James Cotton.  Cropper and Dunn were part of Booker T & the MGs and played on many of Stax Records' hits in the 60's.  Malone played in Blood, Sweat, & Tears, and Marini was part of the SNL band.

Now, I didn't know any of the above information at the time, but a few months after that appearance on SNL, a Blues Brothers song started showing up on the radio, "Soul Man," which charted pretty high on the Top 40 charts (the only charts I was aware of in my area....we were limited pretty much to country music or Top 40, occasionally being able to catch the great rock station about 75 miles away).  I did see an album by The Blues Brothers soon afterward (Briefcase Full of Blues), but being somewhat limited in funds at the time, I never bought it.

The Blues Brothers were a hit!  A subsequent single from the album charted (a cover of The Chips' "Rubber Biscuit"), and a couple of  years later, there was a Blues Brothers movie and accompanying soundtrack, and another album soon after (Made In America), with several more singles charting from both albums, enough to release a greatest hits collection in 1981.

John Belushi died from a drug overdose on March 5, 1982 (I was in the parking lot of the grocery store where I worked when I heard it on the radio) and that pretty much put The Blues Brothers' run to a close, at least temporarily.  Aykroyd had resurrected the concept a few times over the years for special appearances and benefits and a couple of other albums (with Jim Belushi, John's younger brother), plus a sequel to the 1980 movie called Blues Brothers 2000.

I pretty much lost interest in the group after their charismatic front man passed away, but I didn't lose interest in the music.  As time passed, more blues recordings began appearing in record store, but I started my journey via Stax Records' soul recordings, with Sam & Dave of "Soul Man" fame, Wilson Pickett, Booker T & the MG's, and Otis Redding (via Atlantic Records' budget hits collections from the mid 80's).  If I hadn't heard the Blues Brothers' versions of their songs, I might have never even discovered the original sources.

Soon, I began seeing blues collections in my local store of Chess Records, where I got to hear Willie Mabon's original recording of "I Don't Know" on one of their collections, along with other classic recordings from Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter, and albums like B.B. King's Live in Cook County Jail and Bobby "Blue" Bland's Two Steps From The Blues found their way onto my stereo, too, to name a few.  By then I was hearing new recordings from Alligator Records, Rounder Records, Blind Pig Records, and Black Top Records.

Were it not for The Blues Brothers, I might never have started this now nearly 40 year obsession with the blues.  I'm pretty sure I'm not the only fan who can make this claim.  The Blues Brothers started out as a skit on SNL and developed into more or less a "novelty" act to most people, but they really paved the way for a lot of the past few generations of blues fans to discover the music.  

In hindsight, one of the things I admire the most about Belushi and Aykroyd's approach to the band's popularity was that they always paid homage to the sources of the music that they played....Belushi always cited the original artists on their albums and shows, and Aykroyd has hosted several blues radio shows over the years, getting the music out there for old and new fans.  Belushi always encouraged their fans to buy as many blue records as possible.

It was pretty cool to hear The Definitive Collection.  A lot of great memories came back to me upon hearing those songs (there's also a pair of tunes from the 1980 movie featuring Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin).  If Belushi wasn't the classic blues singer, he more than made up for it with his boundless enthusiasm  and his obvious love for the music, and Aykroyd was (and is) a very good harmonica player and he actually got Belushi started with the music, and you just can't beat that magnificent band....Matt "Guitar" Murphy, for one, should be much better known than he is.

While The Blues Brothers don't belong in the pantheon of legendary blues artists, they should at least get a special honor for leading so many blues fans to the music, maybe like one of those Outstanding Achievement awards that you see on some award shows, like as a Contributor or something.  I'm all for that.

There's also a new book about the Blues Brothers (The Blues Brothers:  An Epic Friendship, the Risse of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic) written by Daniel de Vise, who wrote the B.B. King biography we reviewed on our last post back in January.  I haven't read it yet, but plan to since I enjoyed the King book.

If The Blues Brothers led you to the music, I'd love to hear your story.