Twenty-Five Albums for Twenty-Five Years: #20

20. The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack Recording
The latest installment in my ongoing list of Twenty-Five Albums for Twenty-Five Years. To view previous posts, click here: Twenty-Five Albums for Twenty-Five Years.

My father was always a pushover when it came to buying things for me and my brother. Holidays and birthdays weren't big at our house because we usually got what we wanted (if we could reasonably justify our need). As such, I don't really have many memorable birthday presents from my father. The two that I do remember, however, are a basketball goal and a VHS copy of The Blues Brothers.

I remember the basketball goal because I remember thanking my father for it but being damn confused. Didn't my father know I hated basketball? Was this some kind of joke? I was old enough at the time to be thankful and not let my disappointment show, but to this day I just don't know what he was thinking. True, my father was a bad gifter. Mainly because of what I said above: If we wanted something badly enough, then we would get it. No reason to call it a gift. No reason to create drama or suspense. And I've got to say that I love my father for passing some of this on to me: Take care of those you love; don't just save it up for special occasions.

The Blues Brothers VHS tape, though, is a different story. That one he got right. We hadn't had our VCR for long at that point (this falls between 1984 and 1986) and this was the eighties, so we didn't have a massive collection of movies in the home repository. When I got The Blues Brothers, I think the only other official copies of movies we had were Back To The Future and Blazing Saddles.

I still have that Blues Brothers tape. It doesn't play anymore for reasons I don't need to explain.

Our household was fond of the late-seventies-early-eighties comedy, and The Blues Brothers was at the top of the list (with Animal House, Caddyshack, and Blazing Saddles). I remember writing a film review of it for my Introduction to Film class in college. I wrote about it lovingly and with much analytical gusto. I distinctly remember getting it back from my instructor (who would later serve on my master's thesis committee) and reading his comments. He said something like "Great analysis! Still not sure I would call BB a great movie, though…" Great? Questionable. Funny as hell? Yup.

Now that I'm older, there aren't that many movies (or albums, for that matter) that I can quote almost in entirety. The distractions of old age get in the way of remembering lyrics and movie lines.

The Blues Brothers, however, is one of those that I can still watch and drive my wife crazy with quoting… And there's something to be said for that, I think. In grad school, I had some colleagues over for drinks and they spent a good part of the evening rummaging through my CD collection (don't like to brag, but…). They pulled out stacks of discs and loaded them in to my single disc player, one after another, best tracking them. Each song they played, I knew all the lyrics—and several beers into the evening sang with honest delusion… Anyway, one of my friends remarked, "It says a lot about someone who knows all the lyrics to the CD's in his collection." I took it as a compliment.

I've crossed over into music land, but let me go back to the movie for a moment: The movie is downright silly when you really think about it. Two brothers, one recently out of prison, are tapped by God to save the orphanage where they grew up. Classic hero's journey, story of redemption, mixed with lots and lots of blues music and car chases. Stripped of everything else, this movie probably still holds records for most cars crashed in a movie.

So, yeah, it's silly. But if you add up all those disparate elements, you get a movie that is entertaining. And if you break it back down in search of the one thing that is most appealing (besides the car chases), the one thing that holds the entire rat-trap of a movie together, it's got to be the music.

Think about it. What other movie can boast cameos and performances by Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown, John Lee Hooker, and Cab Calloway? And herein lies the meat of the movie: It opened me up to music that I would have otherwise never have encountered. I would even go so far as to say that I might not have been open to Tom Waits if it had not been for the Blues Brothers. That's no joke.

Just as I could quote the dialogue from the movie ("It's a hundred and six miles to Chicago…"), I could sing back up to Aretha, shake my tail feathers with Ray, praise Jesus with the godfather of soul, and scat with Cab. These kids these days are probably getting their musical ya-yas out of that High School Musical crap, but I was shakin' my ass to some good, old fashioned blues and boogie. Jake and Elwood made me want to wear dark sunglasses and a dirty black suit. I wanted to be able to do flips on stage like Jake and play the harmonica like Elwood. I think I even taught myself how to do the eyebrow raise because of John Belushi…

My brother and I wore that VHS tape out. Mostly because it was the only way to hear those tunes…

In my entry on Outlandos D'Amour I mentioned that my first ever CD purchase involved birthday money and two CD's. One of those was Outlandos. The other was The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack Recording.

Let's talk tunes. When I first heard the music in The Blues Brothers, it never really occurred to me that the songs were R&B standards. And, had it not been for my father, I would likely have not known who Aretha, Ray, Cab, and James were. I am even ashamed to admit that I had no frame of reference for the "Theme from Rawhide" or the "Peter Gunn Theme." Yeah, I'd heard them before, but I had never watched the shows. I am, after all, only thirty-three…

In the intervening years, I've gone after most of the Blues Brothers' source material. Luckily, BMG and Columbia House have control of a lot of old R&B recordings, and I've purchased a large portion of this stuff from them—and purchased cheaply, mind you.

From the tape player in the Bluesmobile, I spied The Best of Sam and Dave and later bought this for my collection. I was proud of the fact that not only had I located some Sam and Dave recordings, but that I bought the exact album that was in the Bluesmobile—on CD, not 8-track of course. I also got a hold of an Aretha Franklin box set (Queen of Soul: The Atlantic Recordings). I don't listen to these much, but every now and then, I take a break from the usual suspects (still a rocker at heart) and load the CD changer up with a variety of rhythm and blues…

One of my favorite performances from the movie is Cab Calloway's. There is something mesmerizing about the singing-jive-storytelling-scatting of "Minnie the Moocher." It appeals to my musical aesthetic. I mentioned above that the R&B of The Blues Brothers may have paved the way to my love of Tom Waits. There might be a direct aesthetic line from "Minnie The Moocher" to "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis."

Anyway, my search for more Cab Calloway ended with purchasing Are You Hep To The Jive? (again, through Columbia House). The recordings on this album are a bit of a departure from the older Cab in The Blues Brothers, but they are deeply entertaining. When my wife and I were planning our wedding reception, I was determined to have "Don't Falter At The Altar" on the set list.

Interestingly enough, when I bought the collector's edition DVD of The Blues Brothers, and watched some of the behind-the-scenes featurettes, I learned that it took some serious prodding to have Cab perform "Minnie The Moocher" old-school style. Cab was trying to reinvent himself with a new, disco-inspired sound (don't forget, the movie was made in the late 70's) and couldn't understand why Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi wanted to revisit the old days, the old Cab. In the end, they were able to convince him to do it and—by god!—I’m glad they did!

I am, again, shamed by the fact that I did not go chasing Ray Charles until much later, and I grudgingly thank Taylor Hackford for really getting me to seek out more Ray. I bought a used copy of The Best of Ray Charles: The Atlantic Years on CD several years ago, and enjoyed it (still do). But it wasn't until I watched Ray, and bought the soundtrack for my wife, that I began to really appreciate the music of the blind man who fired a round from a revolver at Steve Cropper as he reached for a guitar in Ray's Music Exchange—and then proceeded to prove the action was fine on an electric piano by playing "Shake A Tail Feather." Man, what a great performance.

Then there's James Brown. Like Ray Charles, I didn't go in search of more James Brown until many years later. This is due, in part, to my low estimation of James's performance in the movie. Not that James was bad, but "The Old Landmark" is my least favorite song from the film. Where all the other songs on the soundtrack hold up well when divorced from the movie, "The Old Landmark" doesn't really work without the film. It needs the high-spirit, high-energy testifying of the church scene that prompts the religious transformation of Jake and Elwood. Without the parishioners gesticulating, fan-waving, and high-flying acrobatics—without James Brown's minister robes— "The Old Landmark" doesn't really play.

This, of course, is not the godfather's fault. And, later, when I did discover more James Brown (on James Brown—20 All Time Greatest Hits!), I was glad I sought him out. "Mother Popcorn (part 1)" is one of my favorite James Brown songs, and I'm happy to say that I got a chance to see him perform it a few years before he died. My good friend Brian was working at the Greensboro Coliseum and he got us tickets to James's show at the War Memorial Auditorium. Despite his age, James broke it down something fierce. Granted, his age did show: He would perform a couple of songs, and then turn it over to the band for a song or two (to rest, I imagine). Then he was right back out there moving like he wasn't in his seventies.

I know I'm getting off track here, but… Rerun (Fred Berry) from What's Happening!! opened for James Brown, and it was the saddest performance I have ever seen. His shtick was really bad—like a man who had so embraced his one note character that he just kept hitting that one note, over and over again. He actually got booed off the stage. I was not surprised to find out that he died shortly after suffering a stroke in 2003 (a little more than a year after seeing him perform). Ah… the complications of early stardom and inescapable icon status.

Anyway.

Back to those television theme songs. What a great premise: A blues band lies its way into a gig at a country and western bar. They start to play their usual set, only to be pelted with bottles. Luckily, the stage is guarded by a chicken wire cage. How does the band get out of the situation? By playing the theme song to Rawhide. Not only do they win the audience over with the song, but due to the film's editing, we are led to believe that their whole set consists of two songs (played over and over to the delight of drunk rednecks). That's funny.

Dan Aykroyd isn't exactly a fantastic singer. Neither, I guess, was John Belushi. But there's no doubt that the two, as the Blues Brothers, were great performers. And Aykroyd's singing at Bob's Country Bunker is his best vocal performance in the film. His low-register, borderline parody delivery is spot on. And backed by the echo (and bull whip) refrain of Belushi, the tune works.

Then there's the "Peter Gunn Theme." So far, I've discussed most of the guest performers and the Blues Brothers themselves, but I haven't talked about the band. And they are well worth some space in this. In fact, if Aykroyd and Belushi, with Paul Shaffer's help, hadn't assembled a full compliment of great blues musicians, the film wouldn't have worked. Just as Jake says in the movie, "You guys were the backbone, the nerve center of a great rhythm and blues band." It's clear that without "the band," the Blues Brothers are just a couple of petty criminals in dirty suits and sunglasses. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the extended jam at the end of "Sweet Home Chicago" (that masks Jake and Elwood's escape) and in "Peter Gunn Theme." The big band horns of Tom Malone, Lou Marini, and Alan Rubin, the guitar licks of Steve Cropper and Matt Murphy, and the rock solid rhythm of Duck Dunn on bass and Willie Hall on drums—all add up to a solid foundation for the eccentricities of a couple of comedians pretending to be blues singers.

Imagine my surprise, many, many years later, when, sitting in the audience of The Late Show With David Letterman, I spied Tom Malone blowing his horn in the CBS Orchestra. That was a great "Aha!" moment.

It is this solid foundation of blues musicianship that allows The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack Recording to stand on its own as a great album. Long before some DVD's allowed us to listen to soundtracks in isolation, I wished that I could do just that with The Blues Brothers. Because as much as I enjoyed the humor of the movie, there were times when I just wanted to listen to the music. Luckily, when I had the opportunity to buy the soundtrack, I did. And I still have that CD.

I'll offer one general complaint about the soundtrack: I wish it had included some additional tracks from the film. I wish it had included the Sam and Dave tracks that the brothers listen to in the car, "Soothe Me" and "Hold On! I'm Comin." I also wish they had included the boys' performance of "Stand By Your Man." Most of all, though, I wish they had included John Lee Hooker's performance of "Boom Boom." My search for more recordings led me to a few of John Lee Hooker's. The Real Folk Blues was a particularly satisfying find. "The Waterfront" has to be one of the best slow blues songs ever (and, for some reason, it reminds me of Jimi Hendrix).

There's good reason that none of these tracks were included (except for maybe "Stand By Your Man"): They were incidental and not integral to the film. But, had the soundtrack gone the route of "complete soundtrack instead of an "original soundtrack", then these tracks could certainly have made it a blues compendium (as the movie might easily be termed, given its cameos and incidentals).

I'll end with this: George Carlin, in one of his later HBO specials (You Are All Diseased), made fun of old fat white guys playing the blues. He narrowed in specifically on The House of Blues, of which Dan Aykroyd was a primary investor. Though I have mixed feelings about much of Carlin's later work (his downward spiral into deep bitterness), I agree, to some extent, with his evaluation: What do fat, old, rich white guys know about the blues? And when it comes to guys like Bruce Willis hopping up on stage with a pork pie hat and a harmonica, I have to inwardly wretch. This is not a tribute, a reverence; this is a co-opting and commodification—a Disneyfication—of arguably the most soulful music in existence.

Bruce Willis will surely spend a stint in hell for it.

Furthermore, I made the mistake of going to see Blues Brothers 2000. Oh my lord, what a steaming pile of wasted film. I love John Goodman (does it get any better than Goodman's performance as Charlie Meadows in Barton Fink?), but his addition to the Blues Brothers camp was just… ugh.

But what Carlin chastises—and what Blues Brothers 2000 surely substantiates—is not present in the original Blues Brothers aesthetic. One need only look at Aykroyd's turn as Elwood: from skinny, tattooed and dirty whelp in the original film to the bloated, nostalgic retread of 2000.

I love Aykroyd, young (Trading Places) and old (The Great Outdoors), but…

Rhythm and blues is most definitely grounded in musical traditions far removed from guys as white as me, but the movie gave me an inroad into those traditions. I would not have found them otherwise. Aretha's, James's, Cab's, and Ray's performances are as honest and soulful as any I have seen, especially in a movie. And for that, I will always cherish it.

The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack Recording will always remain a top twenty-five formative album for me.