Let's get one thing out of the way today on Earth Day: HERC is a fan of John Belushi's work; always has been, always will be. Let's get another thing out of the way right here, right now: some people (HERC among them) consider today (April 22) to be the anniversary of the very first appearance of the Blues Brothers on Saturday Night Live back in 1978. While we're at it, let's get one last thing out of the way: it is pure serendipity that Briefcase Full Of Blues is today's featured album.
This album showed up in HERC's life via HERC SR.'s Columbia House Music Club membership. One day it literally showed up unheralded in the mail. HERC had been watching Saturday Night Live for little more than a year at that point and had seen the Blues Brothers perform twice on the show - his best guess is that the album arrived on his porch sometime after the first of the year in 1979.
"Soul Man", the album's first single, was getting quite a bit of airplay on the radio stations HERC listened to back then (WLS and WLRW) but he remembers HERC SR. also playing the original version of the song by Sam & Dave. One of HERC's friends at the time had a tape that had five or six of the songs the Blues Brothers performed - only by the original artists - that guy's dad actually forbid him from owning the Blues Brothers album because he felt it was an affront to those real blues, soul and R&B artists!
The album was recorded live in September 1978 when Steve Martin asked them to be the opening act for a series of ten stand-up concerts at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. Martin was the biggest comedian in the world and by that time had hosted Saturday Night Live about half a dozen times. With an authentic blues and soul all-star backing band, Jake and Elwood paid loving homage to their favorite blues and soul recordings. They adopted their stage moves and a few tunes from Downchild, a Canadian blues band Dan Aykroyd (aka Elwood) was a fan and friend of while they adopted their hats and soul patches from John Lee Hooker. Sadly, the Blues Brothers would never appear on SNL again. Their next appearance would be on the big screen in their own movie, with even more blues and soul greats! They released their second album as the soundtrack to the motion picture. Then the Blues Brothers did a short tour across the United States to promote the film and by the time they ended their campaign with an eight-night stand once again at the Universal Amphiteatre with their third album Made In America being lifted from those Los Angeles shows. Within three years, the group would lose Joliet Jake (Belushi) as a member and HERC as a fan going forward, although he would dress up as Joliet Jake for at least three more Halloweens!!!
Listen to Briefcase of Blues
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