More than just ‘a bunch of white guys’: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and the birth of the Blues Brothers

On September 9, 1978, the band of Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues – The Blues Brothers – opened for Steve Martin at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, the first show in a nine-night run, where the band recorded a best-selling live album, Briefcase Full of Blues.

More than a novelty act or a movie – and certainly more than wedding disco-favourite Everybody Needs Somebody to Love – the Blues Brothers band was a handpicked ensemble of heavy-duty musicians.

By this time, the men behind the porkpie hats and shades – comedy soulmates John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd – were major names on Saturday Night Live. Animal House had made Belushi a movie star. And Briefcase Full of Blues would soon go double-platinum.

Sax player Lou Marini, an original member of the band, recalls the celebrity attention at those Universal Amphitheater shows. “It was showbiz central in the rehearsals,” says Marini. “Saturday Night Live was so popular and Danny and John’s star has risen so high and so brightly. I remember Mick Jagger being in rehearsals. We were getting standing ovations every night. People were freaking out.

“I was the outside horn player, closest to the audience. At one point I looked over and Jack Nicholson was sitting in the front row. He looked back at me, raised his sunglasses up, and went ‘WOW!’ It was pretty cool…”

Two months later, the Blues Brothers played Saturday Night Live for the last time. They performed, along with other songs, Soul Man, a No. 14 single for the band.

Afterwards, Belushi and Aykroyd opened an afterhours drinking den – The Blues Bar. Hidden away in a rundown part of Manhattan – south of Greenwich Village, on the corner of Dominick Street and Hudson, and tucked at the bottom of a four-story building – The Blues Bar was low-key but high-profile: a place where Saturday Night Live cast members and celebrity guests could retreat and party through the night.

Aykroyd originally rented it as a place to store his motorcycles. “It only took us a week to realise, ‘Hey this would be a great place for a party!’” said Aykroyd, speaking in the 2005 biography on Belushi.

They stocked the bar with booze and stacked the jukebox with jumping rhythm ‘n’ blues and reggae records. There were instruments for jamming sessions.

David Bowie partied there. Francis Ford Coppola and Keith Richards tended the (free) bar. Fellow SNL star Bill Murray admitted being “one of those Blues Bar people.”

In Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller's book on SNL – Live From New York – cast member Laraine Newman said that the facilities were worse than Trainspotting’s filthiest toilet in Scotland. Robin Williams described it as so “funky” – in the old, smelly sense – that the rats might talk back.

Rolling Stone journalist Timothy White visited the Blues Bar and found Joliet Jake and Elwood in-character. There is something about the Blues Brothers that's captured in stories of that bar: down and dirty and party-hard; that strange mix of celebrity and legend; and – of course – the blues.

The Blues Brothers originated at another Aykroyd-owned speakeasy, the 505 Club in Toronto. It was 1974 and Belushi – then part of The National Lampoon Radio Hour – had come to poach talent from the Toronto chapter of the Second City improv group.

“We took one look at each other. It was love at first sight,” Aykroyd later said about meeting Belushi for the first time.

At the 505 Club, Aykroyd introduced Belushi to the Downchild Blues Band. The record – called Straight Up – included songs that became part of Jake and Elwood’s repertoire. Belushi was a heavy metal fan and Aykroyd told him: “You’re from Chicago. You should know about the blues.”

Also present was Howard Shore, future musical director of SNL and the Oscar-winning composer of Lord of the Rings. When Aykroyd and Belushi talked about starting a band, Shore said: “Yeah, you could call yourself the Blues Brothers!”

The following year, Aykroyd and Belushi joined the inaugural cast of Saturday Night Live. They started to figure out the idea and look: the hat and shades came from John Lee Hooker; the suits and ties were borrowed from the beatniks and bebop jazz style.

In the Belushi biography, by his widow Judith Belushi Pisano and Tanner Colby, Blues Brothers director John Landis said: “Ultimately, I think the hats and glasses and outfits were just a socially acceptable way of doing a kind of blackface.”

Their first in-character performance was at the Lone Star Cafe, where they jumped on stage and played with Willie Nelson. They played other amateur gigs around New York, including a performance with Roomful of Blues.

They performed a version of the act on Saturday Night Live in January 1976, singing Slim Harpo’s I’m a King Bee, while dressed as recurring SNL characters the Killer Bees. Belushi – who loathed the bee costume – cartwheeled and somersaulted onto his back.

To the British ear, those early years of SNL are awfully shouty: broad, brash and bolstered by its own hype. Arguably, no star channeled that as purely as the wild and unpredictable Belushi – a hyper-charged agent of comedy chaos.

Jake and Elwood performed warm-up shows before SNL recordings, playing with the house band, which included “Blue” Lou Marini on saxophone (“We had a killer band, man!”). Aykroyd and Belushi campaigned Saturday Night Live boss Lorne Michaels to perform Jake and Elwood on-air.

“They were bugging him to do the Blues Brothers,” says Marini. “But he didn’t want to do it. He said, ‘I don’t think it’s funny, I don’t like it.’ They tried for a few weeks and sort of gave up. Then one of the shows was short – they didn’t have enough material. He said reluctantly, ‘I’ll give you a chance.’ The reaction was through the roof – they were getting phone calls and letters.”

On April 22, 1978 – during an episode hosted by Steve Martin – the Blues Brothers made their debut appearing (performing as “guest musicians” – an important credit which stopped NBC taking ownership of the characters). They belted out versions of Floyd Dixon’s Hey Bartender and Willie Mabon’s I Don’t Know. They returned in November to play Soul Man.

Coming on stage, Elwood had his wrist cuffed to a briefcase – from which he’d pull a Special 20 harmonica – before breaking into their dance routine.

It looked like a comedy act: Elwood’s manic, bandy-legged moves (“Aykroyd’s dancing is f–––––– unique, man,” laughs Marini. “It’s amazing – it ain’t easy either!"); and Jake, a ball of sweat-drenched energy, legs moving faster that they should on a man of his build. But Jake's voice, just a few steps from Belushi’s famous Joe Cocker impression, was all gravel and grit. The Blues Brothers were more alter-egos than comedy characters: comedians who were serious about the music.

“The first time it was on, we were all like, “Okay, Danny knows this is a bit of a joke, but John has no idea,” said longtime SNL writer Jim Downey.

Since that first night at the 505 Club, Belushi had fallen in love with blues music. He collected stacks of records, which he played at soul-rattling volumes – bolstered by a friendship with the R&B singer Curtis Salgado – and made friends listen to songs or sent them tapes. He was testing which songs people reacted to.

“John saw what the Blues Brothers were going to be long before anyone took him seriously,” said Judy Belushi Pisano. They needed a real band, so Belushi and Paul Shaffer – the SNL band pianist and Blues Brothers band leader – selected an eclectic crew of session musicians.

They recruited guitarist Steve Cropper and bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, described by Aykroyd as “men of soul” –  the pioneering rhythm section from the Memphis soul Stax label. They played with Booker T & the MGs and Sam & Dave. Cropper had co-written Otis Redding’s Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, Eddie Floyd’s Knock on Wood, and Wilson Pickett’s In the Midnight Hour. “There’s a reason Cropper is in the Hall of Fame,” says Marini. “He sort of invented a way of rhythm section playing.”

It was Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn who suggested re-cutting Soul Man. They had played on the original version. For lead guitarist, they recruited Matt “Guitar” Murphy, a legit bluesman who had played with Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, James Cotton, and Howlin’ Wolf.

The horn section was recruited in-house from the SNL band: “Mr Fabulous” Alan Rubin, a Julliard graduate who’d been tipped at one time to play lead trumpet in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra; Trombone player Tom “Bones” Malone and saxophonist Marini, who had played together for SNL, Frank Zappa and Blood, Sweat & Tears. The horns were completed by second sax player Tom Scott.

“It was the most powerful and in-tune ever to play in that style of music,” says Marini. “That may be a little superior sounding, but we had a killer f–––––– horn section.”

The drummer also came from SNL: a strong-style jazz drummer named Steve Jordan. “A precocious monster,” says Marini. But the personalities weren’t always in-tune. “That was a band of very strong personalities – every single guy,” says Marini. “There were heated moments – a lot of them. Intense arguments.”

But musically, they became an incredible live act: electrified Chicago blues fused with a Memphis-style rhythm section, with blaring New York horns. “There was a kind of magic to it,” says Marini.

Aykroyd would proudly call his group the “third greatest rhythm ‘n’ blues revue in the world” – after the backing bands of James Brown and Tina Turner. For songs, he moved away from 12-bar shuffle blues. They chose songs that spanned decades and styles, from well-known to obscure artists, and even TV theme tunes (they turned the Perry Mason theme in a certified banger).

In September 1978, the Blues Brothers played their nine-night stand with Steve Martin at the Universal Amphitheater and recorded Briefcase Full of Blues, part of a $125,000 deal with Atlantic Records. It sold 3.5 million copies. On New Year’s Eve 1978, they played an all-star line-up with The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Starship, and New Riders of the Purple Sage.

Aykroyd has often said that the Blues Brothers hit at the right time to create a revival. There was a lull in musical styles: punk was finishing, new wave hadn’t quite started, and black music was dominated by “preprogrammed electronic disco.” (Elwood’s words.)

“The Blues Brothers went from hobby to obsession to national phenomenon in less than a year,” said Aykroyd. But not everyone was a fan. Marini recalls plenty of sneering about the Blues Brothers. Possibly because – apart from Matt Murphy and Steve Jordan – it was “a bunch of white guys.”

“Oh yeah, it was intense, man,” says Marini. “We got put down by everybody except real blues players! They credited us with reviving the blues and getting them more gigs. But we were put down severely. I think it was sort of built-in – and the fact John and Danny were already stars. The movies too – both got bad reviews.”

Released in June 1980, The Blues Brothers film was, according to critics (and much like its climatic car chase), an over-expensive wreck. It ballooned to a cost $27 million – $11 million over-budget – and it shows: The Blues Brothers is wildly self indulgent, and utterly brilliant for it. Its soul – in every sense of the word – is infectious. During production of the film, Belushi's cocaine use was out of control.

The soundtrack album sold a million copies: a highly-polished 11-track collection that includes Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, Sweet Home Chicago (the band’s actual best song from the film), and She Caught the Katy (Belushi’s best vocals). It has cameo songs from James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Cab Calloway. James Brown credited the Blues Brothers with resurrecting his career. In the age of the LP and CD, few music collections were complete without a copy of the Blues Brothers soundtrack.

With the release of the film, the band went on a 20-date tour of the US, playing 16 cities across six weeks. The tour ended at the Universal Amphitheater, where they followed up Briefcase Full of Blues with another live album, Made in America. “That one leaps,” says Marini. “It’s a burning album.”

Everybody Needs Somebody to Love is the band's best known song, but the raw, raucous spirit of the Blues Brothers lives on those live albums. Jake’s best moment comes on Made in America, with a searing-but-sombre rendition of Randy Newman's Guilty. The Blues Brothers had always been played as “real”: magazine articles and interviews done in-character; elaborate backstories created (known as “the legend” of the Blues Brothers); and Jake and Elwood fully credited on the albums – the liner notes would just give a small “thanks” to Belushi and Aykroyd.

It’s in the performance of Guilty that Jake Blues and John Belushi blur completely, singing from the perspective of a booze and coke-addled depressive: “How come I never do what I’m supposed to do? How come everything I try, never turns out right?”

Marini remembers the partying going “back and forth” during his time in the band. “I think Belushi for the most part behaved himself,” he says. “It was when he got too much time on his hands.”

During the last tour, Belushi was serious about staying clean and enlisted the help of a bodyguard, Richard “Smokey” Wendall, as protection against himself. According to Marini, part of Belushi's problem was he was just getting started when everyone else was calling it a night.

“They’d be saying, ‘I’m all messed, I’d better cool it,’” says Marini. “But he was the other way. He was saying, ‘I want to see what happens next.’ He had that sort of romantic, rock star, deacon blues kind of thing. But he was so charismatic and such a generous and funny and wonderful cat to be around. Everybody just loved him.”

On March 5, 1982, Belushi was found dead at a bungalow in Los Angeles’s Chateau Marmont Hotel – killed by a lethal injection of cocaine and heroin.

Speaking on a 1993 documentary, Aykroyd said the Blues Brothers’s run was over by then: each album had declined in sales and they were moving on to other film projects. But Marini remembers plans for another tour and sequel. In the spirit of “we’re putting the band back together” the band reformed in 1988. They toured with singer Eddie Floyd and performed with Elwood at Aykroyd’s House of Blues bar chain.

In 1998, they returned for the Blues Brothers 2000 – a watered-down, near scene-for-scene remake. But there’s some slick music on the soundtrack. Marini’s favourite moment is playing soprano saxophone on a track with Dr John. “It’s super greasy!” says Marini. “There’s some wonderful music in the second one, man.”

In the US, James Belushi’s band, The Sacred Hearts, sometimes play under the Blues Brothers name with Elwood and James Belushi as “Brother Zee”. Meanwhile, the Original Blues Brothers Band – which still includes Marini and Steve Cropper, with occasional appearances from Tom Malone – have continued to play together and tour Europe. In 2017, they recorded The Last Shade of Blue Before Black.

After more than 40 years, Marini is still surprised by the group's power and intensity. As Blue Lou says: "The band is still burning."