Today we know the Blues Brothers as two of the most iconic Saturday Night Live characters in the show’s 50-year history and the stars of one of the finest comedies of the ‘80s. But you might be surprised to learn that they weren’t always given some lovin’, as some critics disapproved of the duo – that is, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi – for playing in a genre they had no business being involved with.
Basically, the core criticism was that white people shouldn’t be singing any version of the blues, a genre with direct ties to Black people in America’s Deep South. In a new Audible series chronicling the history of the band called Blues Brothers: The Arc of Gratitude, one recently unearthed interview from 1979 – one year before the movie came out – finds John Belushi approached about this very matter, to which he replied, “It’s just weird, you know? Why would I do these things? The people watching me understand why I do it, and the band members do. The other people — there’s a certain amount of jealousy, I think, involved…. Why do I do what I do? First of all, it has nothing to do with ego, it has nothing to do with money, you know, or the need to be loved by an audience. I don’t have any of those feelings.”
Before he could really let it sink in, Belushi opened up more vulgarly about the Blues Brothers matter, adding, “What the f*ck do these people think I am, anyway? I can’t f*ckin’ understand why they would attack — see, when they attack me, they attack the band, and I hate when they attack the band, because then it makes them look like schmucks for doing what they did for me.” Belushi would also mention that having white comedians take over music typically associated with Black musicians was never the point and that he actively promotes buying the records that inspired them.
The Blues Brothers would take in $57.2 million in 1980, enough to push it into the top 10 for the year and even beat out eventual Best Picture winner Ordinary People. It, too, would spawn a sequel – and hopefully only one – which failed to perform as well as the original.
What do you make of the criticism against the Blues Brothers? Does it hold weight or is it a rubber biscuit?