... well, maybe not really... Today in rock history, the Blues Brothers made their first appearance as a musical act on Saturday Night Live, in 1978. Paul Schaffer introduced the band, dressed as Don Kirshner, before they tore into “Hey Bartender,” one of the better tracks from their debut album. The "Blues Brothers" was a strange concept; born of a comedy routine and Belushi's recently-acquired obsession with obscure blues, R&B and soul music, coupled with some of the best studio musicians around: Donald "Duck" Dunn, Steve "The Colonel" Cropper, Paul "The Shiv" Schaffer, Tom "Bones" Malone, "Blue Lou" Marini, etc., that formed a soul band that was as tight as a fist and as mean as a junkyard dog (ok, I'll stop with the cliches now). It also brought this obscure music - songs like The Chips' "Rubber Biscuit," Floyd Dixon's "Hey Bartender," etc. - to a mainstream audience of rabid SNL fans who perhaps bought their albums, thinking it would be more comedy, and getting this serious soul music instead. Was it all a lark? Well, maybe not: In "Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers", a 1998 documentary included on some DVD editions of the first Blues Brothers film, Cropper noted that some of his peers thought that he and the other musicians backing the Blues Brothers were selling out to Hollywood or using a gimmick to make some quick money. Cropper responded by stating that he thought Belushi was as good as (or even better than) many of the singers he had backed; he also noted that Belushi had, early in his career, briefly been a professional drummer, and had an especially keen sense of rhythm. So - serious music or a big sellout - check this clip out, and you decide...thanks as always, to wwww.garylessard.com and www.wikipedia.org for the info, and keep on rockin'!
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