The Blues Brothers - B-Sides And Asides
Get the Hotdog box-outs for free then pay for the unexpurgated history of John Landis' carmageddon classic.
I’ll shortly be posting the complete history of The Blues Brothers that I wrote for Hotdog magazine to mark the 25th anniversary of the movie’s release. In the meantime, here are the four box-outs that ran alongside the piece in Issue 58.
A Band Apart
Who’s who in the Blues Brothers’ band
‘The Colonel’ Steve Cropper - The guitarist with Booker T and The MGs, Cropper wrote and played with many artists on the legendary Stax label. When Sam And Dave intone “Play it, Steve” on ‘Soul Man’, it’s Cropper they’re talking to.
Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn - Another MG, bassist Dunn was admitted into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame with the rest of the band in 1992. A famed pipe smoker, Dunn’s parents were either very stupid or blessed with a wonderfully perverse sense of humour.
Murphy ‘Murph’ Dunne - A keyboardist and comedian, Dunne was the only band member with any acting experience, his CV largely consisting of playing pianists. Has subsequently lent his voice to a number of videogames and cartoons.
Willie ‘Too Big’ Hall - The sun visor-sporting drummer, Hall was a valuable member of the Stax team. His claims to fame include touring with Ray Charles and playing percussion on Isaac Hayes’ Shaft soundtrack.
Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy - An axeman since his teens, Murphy played with blues legends such as Memphis Slim. Relatively unsung before hooking up with Jake and Elwood, the association has done plenty for his profile and his bank balance.
Tom ‘Bones’ Malone - Trombone player Malone has been affiliated with Pink Floyd and The Band. He was also a member of David Letterman’s house band alongside Paul Shaffer, the man who recruited him for The Blues Brothers.
‘Blue’ Lou Marini - Another SNL vet, hippy-haired saxman Marini has worked with everyone from Lou Redd to Tony Bennett. Was really pissed Landis obscured his face during ‘Think’, having learned the complicated dance sequence especially for it.
‘Mr Fabulous’ Alan Rubin - One of the few trumpeters in the world who’s worked with Franks Sinatra and Zappa, Ruben has also recorded with The Family Stone and Sting. Ironically, wasn’t a big blues fan before being picked to play with the band.
Millennium Groan
What went wrong with Blues Brothers 2000?
It’s not just the critics and the moviegoers who didn’t take to the belated Blues Brothers sequel. John Landis also has choice words for a project that was, to paraphrase Stewart Lee and Richard Herring, the equivalent of lifting the lid on John Belushi’s coffin and weeing all over his corpse.
“By the time the studio had finished fucking with the script, it was eviscerated,” fumes Landis. “They vanilla-ised it. It was a movie they insisted had to be PG that should have been an R. By the time, they were finished insisting we had a child in the cast, they had homogenised it to the point where I was thinking, ‘What’s the point?’
For all the film’s flaws, there’s one aspect of the sequel that Landis couldn’t be happier with. “The soundtrack’s fantastic! The film might not have been the movie I’d have liked to have made but it’s an album I love to listen to.”
For Guys Without Girlfriends Only
Five tediously trivial fact about The Blues Brothers
i) The soloist in the gospel choir is Yvette Marie Stevens, aka Chaka Khan.
ii) Shelley Levine, who’s billed as ‘Woman On The Cutting Room Floor’ is John Landis’s mother. She was indeed excised from the film during editing.
iii) Aretha Franklins’s backing singers include her younger sister Carolyn.
iv) The first prisoner to take to the tables during the ‘Jailhouse Rock’ sequence is Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh.
v) The Blues Brothers is former hostage John McCarthy’s favourite film.
For The Record
The Blues Brothers’ discography
Briefcase Full Of Blues (1978)
The Blues Brothers (Music From The Soundtrack) (1980)
Made In America (1980)
The Blues Brothers Band Live In Montreux (1990))
Red, White And Blues (1992)
Blues For You (1992)
Blues Brothers 2000 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1997)
Blues Brothers And Friends (Live From Chicago’s House Of Blues) (1997)