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The Blues Brothers
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The Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers 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 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 of all time.
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.
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:
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The Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers 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 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 of all time.
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.
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: