NEW YORK — The shades are on, the skinny tie is knotted and the fedora sits just so – Dan Aykroyd is ready to look back.
The actor-comedian revs the Bluesmobile to reminisce about the years he spent working with John Belushi as the Blues Brothers, taking Hollywood and the Billboard charts by storm.
Aykroyd writes and narrates the Audible Original “Blues Brothers: The Arc of Gratitude,” which begins with meeting Belushi on a freezing night in Toronto in 1973 and takes us to the present, with performances still lined up. The documentary will be released on Thursday.
“It’s cool to keep doing it after about forty years,” says Aykroyd from his summer home in Canada. “Because it’s based on the honesty of African-American culture and music and two white guys who loved it so much, we had to emulate it and do it this way.”
The documentary follows their appearances on “SNL” and their breakthrough album “Briefcase Full of Blues” to the 1980 film and its hit soundtrack, Belushi’s death and Aykroyd’s dedication to continuing the tradition with a new partner – Belushi’s brother Jim – with the creation of House of Blues nightclubs and the sequel to the film “Blues Brothers 2000”.
The two-hour retrospective features interviews with Jim Belushi, bandleader Paul Shaffer, singer Curtis Salgado, director John Landis, drummer Steve Jordan, widow Judy Belushi Pisano, saxophonist Lou Marini and more, as well as a previously unheard interview with John Belushi himself. .
“I provided the structural skeleton of a lot of very strong organic material there,” says Aykroyd. “I think it really brought back time vividly.”
Listeners will discover that “SNL” creator and producer Lorne Michaels was not a fan of the fictional brothers’ act and that their rise was something of a disruption for record labels and movie studios. Key moments came when Willie Nelson and then Steve Martin invited them as the opening act.
The concept was admittedly a bit strange: two white comedians fronting a top-tier blues band for the express purpose of celebrating a musical form that had become dusty.
The Blues Brothers — Aykroyd’s Elwood and Belushi’s “Joliet” Jake — wore black suits and black ties inspired by comedian Lenny Bruce and fedora hats and popper sunglasses borrowed from the album cover of John Lee Hooker’s “House of the Blues.”
Aykroyd says in the audio documentary that the pair saw an opportunity for something fresh, fun and classic “in that little orbital leap of an electron during the seconds between disco and New Wave.”
After successful performances on ‘SNL’ – first as a warm-up act and then as performers – they released an album ‘Briefcase Full of Blues’ – with the hit cover ‘Soul Man’ – and then a cult film as the pair led the police, some Nazis undertake and an angry nation on spectacular chases across Illinois to raise $5,000 to save their childhood home. It had cameos from Carrie Fisher, Chaka Khan, Twiggy, Joe Walsh, Paul Reubens and Frank Oz.
Listeners will learn that one of the most memorable lines was a collaboration. Aykroyd wrote, “It’s 105 miles to Chicago. We have a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes.” Landis added: “It’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses. Hit it.”
The film was also packed to the brim with blues stars – like Donald “Duck” Dunn, Steve Cropper, Matt Murphy – and performances by Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Ray Charles, struggling through fallow periods.
“You could say appropriation. We did that, yes, but we also kept it,” says Aykroyd. “That’s what we’ve always been about. We wanted to show you, forever on film, what these artists could do and what they sounded like.
But exhibitors in the South—particularly Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Georgia—refused. “The consensus among these guys was, ‘This is a black movie and no white people were going to see it,’” Landis recalls. “I remember saying, ‘It has Princess Leia in it!’”
Ultimately, the Blues Brothers – the films, records, skits and music venues – helped fill jukeboxes around the world with classics and revived the careers of Franklin, Brown and Charles, sparking a new love for the blues.
“I’m glad we were able to rekindle interest in these people we loved,” says Aykroyd, who cites dancing with Brown, singing with Little Richard and acting with Franklin as career highlights.
He and Jim Belushi are still touring — including an upcoming performance in August at Blues Brothers Con at Illinois’ historic Joliet Prison — and Aykroyd treats the business like a law firm.
“Jake and Elwood founded it. And now it has new partners and new employees. It has great staying power. The reason is that the music is real. The songs are real.”
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Mark Kennedy is present http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
