Members : "Joliet" Jake Blues - vocals
Elwood J. Blues - harmonica, vocals
"Mighty Mack" McTeer - vocals
Buster Blues - harmonica, vocals (actual harmonica recorded by John Popper)
Cab Chamberlain - vocals
Steve "the Colonel" Cropper - lead/rhythm guitar
Donald "Duck" Dunn - bass guitar
Steve "Getdwa" Jordan - drums
Tom "Bones" Malone - trombone, trumpet, saxophone
"Blue" Lou Marini - saxophone
Matt "Guitar" Murphy - lead/rhythm guitar
Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin - trumpet
Paul "the Shiv" Shaffer - keyboards, arrangements
Tom "Triple Scale" Scott - saxophone
Style : rhythm and blues/blues/jazz/bluegrass
Info:
The Blues Brothers recorded their first album, Briefcase Full of Blues, in 1978 while opening for comedian Steve Martin at Los Angeles' Universal Amphitheater. The album went platinum, and featured Top 40 hit covers of Sam and Dave's "Soul Man" and The Chips' "Rubber Biscuit". Despite the name of the act, most of the songs performed by The Blues Brothers throughout their existence were soul music or R&B classics rather than actual blues music.
The Blues Brothers, along with the New Riders of the Purple Sage, opened for the Grateful Dead for the final show at Winterland, New Year's Eve 1978.
The genesis of the Blues Brothers could be found in a January 1976 SNL skit. In it, "Howard Shore and his All-Bee Band" play the Slim Harpo song "I'm a King Bee", with Belushi singing and Aykroyd playing harmonica, dressed in the bee costumes they wore for the "Killer Bees" sketch.
In the January 4, 1979 edition of the Eugene Register-Guard, an article provides key details about the real origins of Belushi's serious interest in blues music. Belushi was in Eugene, Oregon, filming National Lampoon's Animal House. In October 1977, he went to a local hotel to hear 25-year-old blues singer/harmonica player Curtis Salgado. After the show, Belushi and Salgado talked about the blues for hours. Belushi, interviewed for the article, found Salgado's enthusiasm infectious, saying:
I was growing sick of rock and roll, it was starting to bore me...and I hated disco, so I needed some place to go. I hadn't heard much blues before. It felt good.
Salgado lent him some albums by Floyd Dixon, Charles Brown, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and others. Belushi was hooked.
Belushi began to appear with Salgado on stage, singing the Floyd Dixon song "Hey, Bartender" on a few occasions. He used Salgado's humorous alternate lyrics to "I Don't Know" that Salgado used in his act. Salgado gave the innuendo-laden lyrics to him:
I said Woman, you going to walk a mile for a Camel
Or are you going to make like Mr. Chesterfield and satisfy?
She said that all depends on what you're packing
Regular or king-size
Then she pulled out my Jim Beam, and to her surprise
It was every bit as hard as my Canadian Club.
In the Blues Brothers debut SNL performance, he used the lyrics, and also borrowed Salgado's trademark sunglasses and soul patch for his Jake Blues character.
Belushi made it a point to credit Salgado whenever he could, dedicating the first Blues Brothers album to Salgado and sending him a photo of Belushi and Aykroyd in character, writing on it "Without you, we'd still be just TV actors." They regularly used his name in the introduction of their live show.
Picture of band :
