The Blues Brothers (known formally as "The Fabulous Blues Brothers Show Band and Revue") are an American blues and soul revue band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who met and began collaborating as original cast members of Saturday Night Live. The band was primarily a blues, rhythm and blues, and soul music band, with influences from other classic American genres such as jump blues, country music, jazz, and rock and roll.
The Blues Brothers Musical Revue consisted of lead vocalist "Joliet" Jake Blues (Belushi) and his brother, Elwood (Aykroyd), who played a harmonica that he carried onstage in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. The duo were usually dressed in matching black suits, black pencil ties, black trilby hats and sunglasses. The band itself was carefully constructed, and made up of experienced musicians of the time, including Steve "The Colonel" Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, "Blue" Lou Marini, Tom "Bones" Malone, and Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin.
The act debuted as musical guest on the April 22, 1978, episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by comedian Steve Martin. After recruiting a full band, the group opened for Martin during a residency at the Universal Amphitheatre in September 1978. Recordings from that performance were released on November 28 as a live album, Briefcase Full of Blues. The album rose to the top of the charts and was a platinum seller. Several subsequent albums followed. The act opened for the Grateful Dead at the closing of Winterland Arena in San Francisco, and gained further fame after spawning the comedy film The Blues Brothers in 1980. They remain the most successful blues revue act ever.
Belushi died in 1982, but the Blues Brothers continued to perform with a rotation of guest singers and other band members. The band re-formed in 1988 for a world tour and again in 1998 for the sequel film Blues Brothers 2000.
Contents
Band history
Origins
The genesis of the Blues Brothers was a January 17, 1976, Saturday Night Live sketch. 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" sketches. In 1978, guitarist Arlen Roth was performing on SNL with Art Garfunkel, who was that week's host of the show. Before the actual live show, Belushi and Aykroyd asked Roth and others to join them onstage in the outfits that would later become the Blues Brothers' look. Roth taught Belushi the lyrics to "Rocket 88" so they could perform it that night. This was also discussed on Aykroyd's "Elwood's Bluesmobile" radio show, when Roth was interviewed about his Slide Guitar Summit album, and the song "Rocket 88".
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. Aykroyd and Belushi filled a jukebox with songs from Sam & Dave, punk band the Viletones and others. Belushi bought an amplifier and they kept some musical instruments there for anyone who wanted to jam. It was at the bar that Aykroyd and Ron Gwynne wrote and developed the story which Aykroyd turned into the draft screenplay for 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 was not 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 he gave to the Chicago Sun-Times, Aykroyd said the Blues Brothers act borrowed from Sam and Dave and others; the Sun-Times quoted him as explaining: "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 '40s, '50s '60s, to look straight, you had to wear a suit."
The band was modeled in part on Aykroyd's experience with the Downchild Blues Band, one of the first professional blues bands in Canada, with whom Aykroyd played on occasion. Aykroyd encountered the band in the early 1970s, around the time of his attendance at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and where his interest in the blues developed through attending and occasionally performing at Ottawa's Le Hibou Coffee House. As Aykroyd described it:
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. & 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 "Guitar" 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.
Sound
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 & Dave's "Soul Man" and The Chips' "Rubber Biscuit".
The album liner notes fleshed out the fictional backstory of Jake and Elwood, having them growing up in a Roman Catholic orphanage in Rock Island, Illinois 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.
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. The tour began on June 27, 1980 at Poplar Creek Music Theater. The tour also 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 featured The Lamont Cranston Band'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, Belushi died in Hollywood of an accidental overdose of heroin and cocaine.
Films
The Blues Brothers
In 1980, The Blues Brothers, directed by John Landis, was released. It featured 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, who after a visit to Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman), otherwise known as "The Penguin" at the Catholic orphanage where they grew up, choose to take on a "mission from God" and re-form their old blues band in order to raise funds to save the orphanage. 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.
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.
Full stage musical
The Blues Brothers Musical
In 2020, the first Blues Brothers full stage musical premiered in Tauranga, New Zealand. Written and directed by New Zealand writers Gordy Lockhart and Liam Hagan and produced by Tauranga Musical Theatre, Lockhart and Hagan spent years in discussions with Judy Belushi prior to signing an agreement with Belushi and Aykroyd to use Blues Brothers intellectual property.
The main task of the writers was to create a stage show based on a new storyline as complications with rights ownership meant the original movie script could not be adapted for the stage. The result was The Blues Brothers - First Contact.
The Blues Brothers – First Contact
Show Synopsis
Jake and Elwood Blues are conditionally released from Joliet Detention Facility and are conscripted to the US military on direct orders from the Commander in Chief.
Five years previously, SETI Project Scientists detected a faint signal from Gamma Proteous 5 in the Carina Nebula. Now, in a highly classified CIA led operation, First Contact and the arrival of alien visitors on Planet Earth is scheduled for 7-23pm on Tuesday 24th August at Area 56 in the Dark Mountains of Global Region Echo.
However, the President has intelligence that suggests the morale of American forces, Joint Special Forces Operations Command (JSOC), based at Area 56 are at an all-time low.
POTUS believes that following five years of arduous preparation far from home, the appalling quality of entertainment at the region's main base to be the core of the issue.
His solution? He instructs the Joint Chiefs to find the only musical act that has a hope of raising morale, so saving the world and developing intergalactic relations.
Discography
Elwood Blues
1995 – Blues Traveler: Blues Roll Me Baby (Live New Orleans '95) EP
The Elwood Blues Revue
Live albums
1988 – Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary (Atlantic) (as The Elwood Blues Revue)
Other appearances
1988 – The Great Outdoors soundtrack (Atlantic) (as The Elwood Blues Revue)
1992 – Nothing but Trouble (Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Warner Bros / WEA) (as The Elwood Blues Revue)
The Blues Brothers Band
Studio albums
1992 – Red, White & Blues (WEA)
2017 – The Last Shade of Blue Before Black (The Original Blues Brothers Band, Severn Records)
Singles & EPs
1990 – Sweet Home Chicago / Soul Man (WEA)
1992 – Never Found a Girl / Red, White & Blues (WEA)
1993 – Australian Tour Sampler - April 1993 – EP (WEA)
Live albums
1990 – The Blues Brothers Band Live in Montreux (WEA)
Bootlegs
1987 – Otis, Onions & the Blues (with Booker T. & the MGs) (Green Hell Records GmbH & CoKG)
1992 – Blues For You - Live In Montreux 1992
2004 – Jazz San Javier 2004
The Blues Brothers Horns
1995 – Jesse "Wild Bill" Austin: Baby's Back (Roesch Records) (Lou Marini, Alan Rubin & Birch Johnson)
1997 – Eddie King: Another Cow's Dead (Roesch Records) ( Lou Marini, Alan Rubin & Birch Johnson plus Ronnie Cuber)
2000 – Matt "Guitar" Murphy: Lucky Charm (Roesch Records) (Lou Marini, Alan Rubin & Birch Johnson)
2014 – Johnny Winter: Step Back (Megaforce) (Lou Marini & Tom Malone)
Band members
Original lineup
While not all members appeared in the original film, the full band included:
"Joliet" Jake E. Blues – lead vocals
Elwood J. Blues – harmonica, vocals
Steve "The Colonel" Cropper – lead and rhythm guitar (former Booker T & the M.G.'s)
Matt "Guitar" Murphy – lead and rhythm guitar (Howlin' Wolf, other artists)
Donald "Duck" Dunn – bass guitar (former Booker T & the M.G.'s)
Paul "The Shiv" Shaffer – keyboards, arranger (Saturday Night Live Band, does not appear in the film)
Murphy Dunne – keyboards, tambourine (appears in the film due to Paul Shaffer's commitment to perform with Gilda Radner in Gilda Live!, and toured with the band in the summer of 1980)
Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin – trumpet (Saturday Night Live Band)
"Blue" Lou Marini – saxophone (Saturday Night Live Band)
Tom "Triple Scale" Scott – saxophone (does not appear in the film, but played on the soundtrack)
Tom "Bones" Malone – trombone, trumpet, saxophone (Saturday Night Live Band)
Birch "Crimson Slide" Johnson – trombone (does not appear in the film)
Willie "Too Big" Hall – drums, percussion (formerly of the Bar-Kays, Isaac Hayes' band, appears in the film)
Other members
At times, other members have included:
Jim Belushi (as "Brother" Zee Blues) – lead vocals
John Goodman (as "Mighty Mack" McTeer) – co-lead vocals
Buster Blues – harmonica, co-lead vocals (acted by J. Evan Bonifant in Blues Brothers 2000, actual harmonica recorded by John Popper)
Joe Morton (as Cabel "Cab" Chamberlain) – vocals
Cab Calloway – vocals (d. 1994)
Larry "T" Thurston – vocals
Eddie "Knock on Wood" Floyd – vocals
Sam "Soul Man" Moore – vocals
Bobby "Sweet Soul" Harden – vocals
Tommy "Pipes" McDonnell – harmonica, vocals
Rob "The Honeydripper" Paparozzi – harmonica, vocals
Don Gregory Blues - vocals
Andrea Mingardi - harmonica, vocals
Leon "The Lion" Pendarvis – piano, vocals, arranger
David "Spin" Spinozza – guitar
Danny "G-Force" Gottlieb – drums
Jimmy "Jimmy B" Biggins – saxophone
"Dizzy" Daniel Moorehead – saxophone
Anthony "Rusty" Cloud – clavinet, Wurlitzer, piano and organ