The Blues Brothers (film)

The Blues Brothers
Promotional movie poster
Directed by	John Landis
Written by	Dan Aykroyd John Landis
Produced by	Bernie Brillstein George Folsey Jr. David Sosna Robert K. Weiss
Starring	John Belushi Dan Aykroyd Carrie Fisher John Candy Henry Gibson
Cinematography	Stephen M. Katz
Edited by	George Folsey Jr.
Music by	Elmer Bernstein
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	June 20, 1980
Running time	Theatrical cut: 133 minutes Extended cut: 148 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$27 million
Box office	$115,229,890

The Blues Brothers is a 1980 American musical comedy film directed by John Landis and starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues, characters developed from a musical sketch on the NBC variety series Saturday Night Live. It features musical numbers by R&B and soul singers James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and John Lee Hooker. The film is set in and around Chicago, Illinois, and also features non-musical supporting performances by John Candy, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, and Henry Gibson.

The story is a tale of redemption for paroled convict Jake (Belushi) and his brother Elwood (Aykroyd), who take on "a mission from God" to save from foreclosure the Catholic orphanage in which they grew up. To do so they must reunite their rhythm and blues band, The Blues Brothers, and organize a performance to earn $5,000 to pay the tax assessor. Along the way they are targeted by a destructive "mystery woman", Neo-Nazis, and a country and western band—all while being relentlessly pursued by the police.

Released in“ the United States on June 20, 1980, it received generally good reviews with 84% of reviews positive according to the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. It earned a mere $5 million in its opening weekend, however it went on to gross more than $115 million in theaters worldwide before its release on home video.

Plot

“Joliet” Jake Blues is released from the Joliet Correctional Center after serving three years of a prison sentence after being convicted of armed robbery. Jake is irritated at being picked up by his brother Elwood in a battered former Mt. Prospect, Illinois police car, instead of the Cadillac The Blues Brothers used to own.

The Blues Brothers visit their childhood home, a Roman Catholic orphanage, Saint Helen-of-the-Blessed-Shroud Orphanage. From Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman), The Blues Brothers learn that a property tax lien on the orphanage property will be foreclosed upon unless five thousand dollars in property taxes is remitted on its behalf to the county (the associated church has elected instead to sell the building to the Board of Education rather than pay the tax assessment). At the advice of their childhood mentor, Curtis (Cab Calloway), The Blues Brothers attend an evangelical church service at Triple Rock Baptist Church, led by the Reverend Cleophus James (James Brown), where Jake has an epiphany: The Blues Brothers can legitimately raise the funds by re-forming their rhythm and blues band, The Blues Brothers’ Band.

As The Blues Brothers drive past a doughnut shop and Nelson Funeral Home in the Bluesmobile, Elwood’s driving alerts two Illinois State Police troopers, Trooper Daniel (Armand Cerami) and Trooper Mount (Steven Williams), who, after pursuing The Blues Brothers into a quiet, secluded residential area, learn from their in-car SCMODS (State-County-Municipal Offender Data System) computer terminal of Elwood’s suspended driver's license. When Trooper Daniel and Trooper Mount attempt to place Elwood under arrest, Elwood speeds off, escaping by driving and crashing through, with the Illinois State Troopers in pursuit, the Dixie Square Mall.

After parking the Bluesmobile in an alley-end compartment next to a high-voltage transformer (hence the Bluesmobile’s remarkable magical abilities) and arriving at Elwood’s home, a hotel for transients, The Blues Brothers are mysteriously unharmed from a bazooka attack launched by a mystery woman (Carrie Fisher). The next morning, just as the Illinois State Troopers who attempted to arrest Elwood the previous evening, with the help of Parole officer Burton Mercer (John Candy) as to the true address of “the elegant abode of one Elwood Blues” (because Elwood had ‘falsified his renewal’ and ‘put down ten sixty West Addison’, the street address of Wrigley Field) attempt to serve an arrest warrant at Elwood’s tiny room, the mystery woman detonates a bomb that demolishes the building, which inadvertently saves The Blue Brothers from another attempted arrest.

Elwood proceeds to his “straight job”, on the assembly line at an aerosol-can manufacturer, takes several cans from the line and places them in his briefcase, and visits the plant manager, quitting his job, citing a decision to become a priest (curiously, Elwood’s supervisor’s office is adorned with a U.S. flag and an Illinois state flag, suggesting that the aerosol-can manufacturer in an enterprise owned by the government of the State of Illinois—or else simply that Elwood’s supervisor thought it would be cool to adorn his office with a U.S. flag and an Illinois flag).

Jake and Elwood begin tracking down members of the band. Trombonist Tom “Bones” Malone and the rhythm section of the group (Willie “Too Big” Hall, Steve “The Colonel” Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, and Murphy “Murph” Dunné) known as “Murph and the Magictones”, are playing in an empty Holiday Inn lounge, “The Armada Room”, and are readily convinced to rejoin The Blues Brothers’ Band. Trumpeter “Mister Fabulous” (Alan Rubin), now maître d' at a restaurant, is more of a challenge to persuade (“you ain′t never gonna get ’em outta those high-payin’ gigs”), but Jake and Elwood rudely convince him with some dining-room hijinks. En route to meet saxophonist Louis “Blue Lou” Marini and guitarist Matt “Guitar” Murphy, The Blues Brothers drive through a rally of neo-Nazis (upon whom Jake comments “Illinois Nazis—I hate Illinois Nazis!”) and adding another enemy to the The Blues Brothers’ growing list of pursuing parties. Marini and Murphy are working at the soul food restaurant on Maxwell Street, in Calumet City, Illinois, which Murphy owns with his wife (Aretha Franklin). Against her advice, the two musicians leave and rejoin the band. The reunited group obtain new musical instruments and associated equipment from Ray (Ray Charles) of Ray’s Music Exchange, in Calumet City, Illinois, on loan, pending payment from the proceeds of The Blues Brothers’s Band’s pending ‘triumphant return’.

Jake is unable to book a gig in advance, and the band stumbles into a gig at “Bob’s Country Bunker”, a country bar, in Kokomo, Indiana. After a rocky start, billing themselves verbally as “The Good Ole Blues Brothers Boys Band from Chicago”, the band win over the still-bottle-tossing crowd with renditions of the theme from the television show Rawhide and, ‘a favorite of the horn section’, Stand By Your Man. At the end of the evening, however, not only is their bar tab greater than the pay for the gig (“that’s right—two hundred dollars, and you boys drank three hundred dollars’ worth of beer’), The Blue Brothers infuriate both Bob, the owner of Bob’s Country Bunker, by pretending to write out a traveller's check on the Bluesmobile’s glove-compartment lid and then driving off, and the band that was actually meant to play, the Good Ole Boys, with Jake masquerading as a union representative of the American Federation of Musicians, demanding to see the Good Ole Boys’ union cards.

The Blues Brothers the proceed to blackmail their erstwhile agent, Maury Sline (Steve Lawrence), into securing a gig at a venue known as the “Palace Hotel Ballroom”, located 106 miles (171 km) north of Chicago, on “Lake Wazapumani”. After driving through Lake County, Illinois, DuPage County, Illinois and McHenry County, Illinois promoting, via Elwood’s amplified voice, the concert over an air raid siren mounted on the roof of the Bluesmobile, the Bluesmobile runs out of gas, making Jake and Elwood late for the concert.

The ballroom is packed, and the concert-goers are joined by the Good Ole Boys and scores of “the members of Illinois’ law-enforcement community who have chosen to join us in the Palace Hotel Ballroom at this time”. Jake and Elwood sneak into the venue and perform two songs. A record company executive offers them a cash advance of ten thousand dollars as to a recording contract, more than enough to cover the orphanage's property taxes and the cost of the band's instruments, and tells The Blues Brothers how to slip out unnoticed.

As The Blues Brothers escape via a service tunnel, they are confronted by the mystery woman, whereupon it is revealed she is Jake's ex-fiancée, who ‘waited in celibacy at the back of a cathedral with three hundred friends and relatives in attendance’, and for the wedding party, whose uncle hired ‘the best Romanian caterers in the state’ and whose father ‘used up his last favors with Mad Pete Trullo’ to obtain the required seven limousines. She opens fire with an M16 rifle on them, but Jake charms her before dropping her, allowing The Blues Brothers to escape to and in the Bluesmobile.

The Blues Brothers proceed back to Chicago in the Bluesmobile, with members of the Illinois State Police, including Trooper Daniel and Trooper Mount and Parole officer Mercer, Bob of Bob’s Country Bunker, the Good Ole Boys, and subsequently joined by the bulk of the Chicago Police Department, including its horseback, water-borne and airborne resources, who are subsequently joined by the Illinois National Guard (including their internal military police contingent) and, finally, the “Illinois Nazis”, in pursuit. Jake and Elwood eventually elude them all, leaving piled-up police cars in their wake, the Good Ole Boys' Winnebago crashed into an unspecified body of water, and the “Illinois Nazi” Pinto dropped from a ridiculously great height off of an unfinished highway overpass, to an empty lot next to a lakefront snow-removal saltpile (although the Illinois Nazis’ vehicle mysteriously lands and crashes through the asphalt of a Chicago city street).

After the a gravity-defying escape from the Illinois Nazis in the Bluesmobile, Jake and Elwood arrive at the Richard J. Daley Center Courthouse and Office Building, where the Bluesmobile literally falls to pieces. They rush inside the adjacent Chicago City Hall building, soon followed by the massive law-enforcement contingent. Finding the office of the Cook County Assessor, The Blues Brothers pay the tax bill.

As their receipt is stamped by a sandwich-eating employee of the Assessor (Steven Spielberg), The Blue Brothers are arrested by the large crowd of the assorted armed officers, including those from the Chicago Police Department, Illinois State Police and the Illinois National Guard. Jake, now joined by Elwood and the rest of the band, are sent to prison where they play Jailhouse Rock for fellow inmates.

Cast

• Cab Calloway as Curtis
• Carrie Fisher as Mystery Woman
• Aretha Franklin as Mrs. Murphy
• Ray Charles as Pawn Shop Owner/Himself
• James Brown as Reverend Cleophus James
• John Candy as Burton Mercer
• Kathleen Freeman as Sister Mary Stigmata, "The Penguin"
• Henry Gibson as Head Nazi
• Steve Lawrence as Maury Sline
• Twiggy as Chic Lady
• Frank Oz as Corrections Officer
• Jeff Morris as Bob
• Sheilah Wells as Claire
• Charles Napier as Tucker McElroy

• Steven Williams as Trooper Mount
• Armand Cerami as Trooper Daniel
• Chaka Khan as Choir soloist
• John Lee Hooker as musician on Maxwell Street
• John Landis as State trooper
• Stephen Bishop as police officer with broken watch
• Joe Walsh as Prisoner
• Paul Reubens as Chez Paul waiter
• Steven Spielberg as Cook County Assessor's Office Clerk
• Layne Britton as The Cheese Wiz
• Joe Cuttone as Lloyd
• Toni Fleming as Mrs. Tarantino
• Carolyn Franklin, Brenda Bryant Corbett, and Margaret Branch as Soul Food Chorus.

The Blues Brothers Band

Main article: The Blues Brothers

• John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues, lead vocals
• Dan Aykroyd as Elwood Blues, harmonica and lead vocals
• Steve Cropper as Steve "the Colonel" Cropper, lead guitar, rhythm guitar and vocals
• Donald "Duck" Dunn as Donald "Duck" Dunn, bass guitar
• Murphy Dunne as Murphy "Murph" Dunne, keyboards
• Willie Hall as Willie "Too Big" Hall, drums and percussion
• Tom Malone as Tom "Bones" Malone, trombone, tenor saxophone and vocals
• Lou Marini as "Blue Lou" Marini, alto saxophone and tenor saxophone and vocals
• Matt Murphy as Matt "Guitar" Murphy, lead guitar
• Alan Rubin as Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin, trumpet, percussion and vocals

Production

Origins

See also: The Blues Brothers

The characters, Jake and Elwood Blues, were created by Belushi and Aykroyd in performances on Saturday Night Live. The name "The Blues Brothers" was the idea of Howard Shore. The fictional back story and character sketches of blood brothers Jake and Elwood were developed by Aykroyd in collaboration with Ron Gwynne, who is credited as a story consultant for the film. As related in the liner notes of the band's debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues, the brothers grew up in an orphanage, learned the blues from a janitor named Curtis and sealed their brotherhood by cutting their middle fingers with a steel string said to have come from the guitar of Elmore James.

When it was decided the act could be made into a film by Universal Pictures, Aykroyd set about writing the script. He had never written a screenplay before, he said in the 1998 documentary, Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers, and he put together a very descriptive volume that explained the characters' origins and how the band members were recruited. It was 324 pages, which was three times longer than a standard screenplay. To soften the impact, Aykroyd made a joke of the thick script and had it bound with the cover of the Los Angeles Yellow Pages directory for when he turned it in to producer Robert K. Weiss. John Landis was given the task of editing the script into a usable screenplay.

The premise of the underlying plot, that a church-owned orphanage would have to pay a property tax bill, has been questioned—in Illinois, and generally elsewhere in the world, religious property is exempt from taxes. However, at the time of writing of the film, a legislative proposal to tax such property was under consideration. The proposal was never enacted into law.

Location

Much of the film was shot on location in and around Chicago, Illinois between July and October 1979. Made with the cooperation of Mayor Jane M. Byrne, it is credited for putting Chicago on the radar as a venue for filmmaking. Nearly 200 movies have been filmed in Chicago. "Chicago is one of the stars of the movie. We wrote it as a tribute," Dan Aykroyd told the Chicago Sun-Times in an article written to mark the film's 25th anniversary DVD release.

The Bluesmobile races through the mall while being chased by State Troopers.

The first traffic stop was in Park Ridge, Illinois. The mall car chase was filmed in the real, albeit abandoned, Dixie Square Mall in Harvey. The bridge jump was filmed on an actual drawbridge, the 95th Street bridge over the Calumet River, on the southeast side of Chicago. The main entrance to Wrigley Field (and its sign reading "Save lives. Drive safely, prevent fires.") makes a brief appearance when the "Illinois Nazis" visit it after Elwood falsely registers the ball field's location, 1060 West Addison, as his home address on his driver's license. (Elwood's Illinois driver's license number is an almost-valid encoded number, with Dan Aykroyd's own birth date embedded). The other chase scenes included Lower Wacker Drive, Lake Street and Richard J. Daley Center.

In the final car chase scene, the production actually dropped a Ford Pinto, representing the one driven by the "Illinois Nazis," from a helicopter at an altitude of more than a mile—and had to gain a Special Airworthiness Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration to do it. The FAA was concerned that the car could prove too aerodynamic in a high-altitude drop, and pose a threat to nearby buildings. The shot leading up to the car drop, where the "Illinois Nazis" drive off a freeway ramp, was shot in Milwaukee, Wisconsin near the Hoan Bridge on Interstate 794. The Lake Freeway (North) was a planned but not completed 6-lane freeway and I-794 contained an unfinished ramp that the Nazis drove off. Several Milwaukee skyscrapers are visible in the background as the Bluesmobile flips over, notably the US Bank Center.

The "Palace Hotel Ballroom," where the band performs its climactic concert, was at the time of filming a country club, but later became the South Shore Cultural Center, named after the Chicago neighborhood in which it is located. The interior concert scenes were filmed in the Hollywood Palladium.

The filming in downtown Chicago was conducted on Sundays during the summer of 1979, and much of the downtown was cordoned off from the public. Costs for filming the largest scene in the city's history, totaled $3.5 million. Permission was given after Belushi and Aykroyd offered to donate $50,000 to charity after filming. Although the Bluesmobile was allowed to be driven through the Daley Center lobby, special breakaway panes were temporarily substituted for the normal glass in the building. The speeding car caused $7,650 in damages to 35 granite pavers and a bronze air grille in the building. Interior shots of the elevator, staircase, and assessor's office were all re-created in a filmset for filming.

Bluesmobile

Main article: Bluesmobile

The film used 13 different cars bought at auction from the California Highway Patrol to depict the Bluesmobile, a retired 1974 Mount Prospect, Illinois Dodge Monaco patrol car. The vehicles were outfitted by the studio to do particular driving chores; some formatted for speed and others for jumps, depending on the scene. For the large car chases, filmmakers purchased 60 police cars at $400 each, and most were destroyed at the completion of the filming. More than 40 stunt drivers were hired and the crew kept a 24-hour body shop to repair cars.

For the scene when the Blues Brothers finally arrive at the Richard J. Daley Center, a mechanic took several months to rig the car to fall apart. The statues, seeming to be looking on with concern when the car disassembles, actually exist at the Cook County Building. At the time of the film's release, it held the world record for the most cars destroyed in one film until it was surpassed by its own sequel.

Casting

In addition to recognized soul and R&B stars James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin, the members of The Blues Brothers band are notable for their musical accomplishments as well. Steve Cropper and Donald Dunn are architects of the Stax Records sound and were half of Booker T. & the M.G.'s - it is Cropper's guitar heard at the start of the Sam and Dave song "Soul Man". Horn players Lou Marini, Tom Malone, and Alan Rubin had all played in Blood, Sweat & Tears and the Saturday Night Live band. Drummer Willie Hall had played in the Bar-Kays and backed Isaac Hayes. Matt Murphy is a veteran blues guitarist. Blues performers were featured in the cast as well, with John Lee Hooker backed by harmonica player Big Walter Horton and pianist Pinetop Perkins, playing "Boom Boom" on Maxwell Street.

As the band developed at Saturday Night Live, pianist Paul Shaffer was part of the act and was cast in the film. However, due to contractual obligations with SNL, he was unable to participate. So actor-musician Murphy Dunne (whose father, George Dunne, was the Cook County Board President) was hired to take his role. Shaffer later did appear in Blues Brothers 2000.

Carrie Fisher, Kathleen Freeman, Henry Gibson, and John Candy were cast in non-musical supporting roles. The film is also notable for the number of cameo appearances by established celebrities and entertainment industry figures, including Steve Lawrence as a booking agent, Frank Oz as a corrections officer, Twiggy as a "chic lady" in a Jaguar convertible whom Elwood propositions at a gas station, and Steven Spielberg as the Cook County Assessor's clerk. John Landis plays a state trooper in the mall chase. Paul Reubens (pre-Pee-wee Herman) has a small role as a waiter in the Chéz Paul. Joe Walsh has a cameo as the first prisoner to jump up on a table in the final scene, and Chaka Khan is the soloist in James Brown's choir. The character portrayed by Cab Calloway is named Curtis as an homage to Curtis Salgado, a Portland, Oregon, blues musician who inspired Belushi while he was in Oregon filming Animal House.

Over 500 extras were used for the final scene at Daley Center, including 200 National Guardsmen, 100 state and city police officers, and 15 horses were used in filming of the blockade on the building. Additionally, three Sherman tanks, three helicopters, and three fire engines were used.

Reception

Box office

The Blues Brothers opened on June 20, 1980 with a release in 594 theaters. It took in $4,858,152, ranking second for that week (after The Empire Strikes Back) and 10th for the entire year. Over the years, it has retained a following through television and home video. The film in total grossed $57,229,890 domestically and $58,000,000 in foreign box offices for a total of $115,229,890. By genre, it is the ninth-highest grossing musical and the tenth-highest earner among comedy road movies. It ranks second, between Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2 (which, coincidentally, also take place in the greater Chicago metropolitan area, in nearby Aurora, Illinois), among films adapted from Saturday Night Live sketches. Director Landis claimed that The Blues Brothers was also the first American film to gross more money overseas than it did in the United States.

Critical reception

The film has an 84% positive rating based on 45 reviews from critics at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. It won the Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing and Sound Effects, is number 14th on Total Film magazine's "List of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films of All Time" and is number 69 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies".

The Blues Brothers has been criticized for its simplistic plot and being overly reliant on car chases. Among the reviewers at the time of the film's release who held that opinion was Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times. However, Ebert praised it for its energetic musical numbers and said that the car chases were "incredible". In his review for the Washington Post, Gary Arnold criticized Landis engorging "the frail plot of The Blues Brothers with car chases and crack-ups, filmed with such avid, humorless starkness on the streets of Chicago that comic sensations are virtually obliterated". Time magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "The Blues Brothers is a demolition symphony that works with the cold efficiency of a Moog synthesizer gone sadistic".

Janet Maslin of The New York Times criticized the film for shortchanging viewers on more details about Jake and Elwood's affinity for African-American culture. She also took director Landis to task for "distracting editing", mentioning the Soul Food diner scene in which saxophonist Lou Marini's head is cut off as he dances on the counter. In the documentary, Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers, Landis acknowledges the criticism, and Marini recalls the dismay he felt at seeing the completed film.

On the 30th anniversary, L'Osservatore Romano, official newspaper of the Vatican, called the film a "Catholic classic" and recommended viewing.

Cult-film status

See also: The Blues Brothers in popular culture

The Blues Brothers has become a staple of late-night cinema, even slowly morphing into an audience participation show in its regular screenings at the Valhalla Cinema, in Melbourne, Australia. John Landis acknowledged the support of the cinema and the fans by a phone call he made to the cinema at the 10th anniversary screening, and later invited regular attendees to make cameo appearances in Blues Brothers 2000. The fans act as the members of the crowd during the performance of "Ghost Riders in the Sky".

In August 2005, there was a 25th anniversary celebration for The Blues Brothers at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. Attendees included Landis, former Universal Studios executive Thom Mount, movie editor George Folsey Jr., and cast members James Brown, Henry Gibson, Charles Napier, Steve Cropper, and Stephen Bishop. It featured a press conference, a panel discussion where Dan Aykroyd joined via satellite, and a screening of the original theatrical version of the film. The panel discussion was broadcast directly to many other cinemas around the country.

Release

Home media

When the film was first screened for a preview audience, a producer demanded that director John Landis cut 25 minutes from the film. After trimming 15 minutes, it was released in theaters at 133 minutes. The film's original length was restored to 148 minutes for the "Collector's Edition" DVD and a Special Edition VHS release in 1998. The 25th anniversary DVD release in 2005 includes both the theatrical cut and the extended version.

Soundtrack

Untitled

The Blues Brothers: Music from the Soundtrack was released on June 20, 1980 as the second album by the Blues Brothers Band, which also toured that year to promote the film. "Gimme Some Lovin'" was a Top 20 Billboard hit, peaking at number 18. The album was a followup to their debut, the live album, Briefcase Full of Blues. Later that year they released a second live album, Made in America, which featured the Top 40 track, "Who's Making Love".

The songs on the soundtrack album are a noticeably different audio mix than in the film, with a prominent baritone saxophone in the horn line (also heard in the film during "Shake a Tail Feather," though no bari sax is present), and female backing vocals on "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love", though the band had no backup singers in the film. A number of regular Blues Brothers' members, including saxophonist Tom Scott and drummer Steve Jordan, perform on the soundtrack album but are not in the film.

According to director Landis in the 1998 documentary The Stories Behind the Making of 'The Blues Brothers', filmed musical performances by Franklin and Brown took more effort, as neither artist was accustomed to lip-synching their performances on film. Franklin required several takes, and Brown simply rerecorded his performance live. Cab Calloway initially wanted to do a disco variation on his signature tune, "Minnie The Moocher", having done the song in several styles in the past, but Landis insisted that the song be done faithful to the original big band version.

1. "She Caught the Katy" (Taj Mahal, Rachell) – 4:10
   • The Blues Brothers with lead vocals by Jake Blues
2. "Peter Gunn Theme" (Mancini) – 3:46
   • The Blues Brothers Band
3. "Gimme Some Lovin'" (S. Winwood, M. Winwood, Davis) – 3:06
   • The Blues Brothers with Jake Blues, lead vocals
4. "Shake a Tail Feather" (Otis Hayes, Andre Williams, Verlie Rice) – 2:48
   • Ray Charles with the Blues Brothers (Jake and Elwood, backing vocals)
5. "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" (Wexler, Berns, Burke) – 3:21
   • The Blues Brothers (Jake Blues, lead vocals; Elwood Blues, harmonica and vocals)
6. "The Old Landmark" (Brunner) – 2:56
   • James Brown and the Rev. James Cleveland Choir (additional choir vocals by Chaka Khan credited in the film)
7. "Think" (White, Franklin) – 3:13
   • Aretha Franklin and the Blues Brothers with backing vocals by Brenda Corbett, Margaret Branch and Carolyn Franklin (real-life sister of Aretha) and Jake and Elwood
8. "Theme from Rawhide" (Tiomkin) – 2:37
   • Elwood and Jake and the Blues Brothers Band
9. "Minnie the Moocher" (Calloway, Mills) – 3:23
   • Cab Calloway with the Blues Brothers Band
10. "Sweet Home Chicago" (Johnson) – 7:48
    • Dedicated to the musician Magic Sam
11. "Jailhouse Rock" (Leiber, Stoller) – 3:19
    • Jake Blues and the Blues Brothers (Over the closing credits in the film, verses are sung by James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and "crew".)

Other songs in the film

The film's score includes "God Music" (instrumental with choir vocalese) composed by Elmer Bernstein, who previously had worked with John Landis on National Lampoon's Animal House. Other songs in the film include:

• "Somebody Loan Me A Dime" - composed and performed by Fenton Robinson (music playing on the radio while Jake is being escorted from his prison cell.)
• "Shake Your Moneymaker" – composed and performed by Elmore James
• "Soothe Me"/"Hold On! I'm Comin'" – composed by Sam Cooke/Isaac Hayes and David Porter; performed by Sam and Dave
• "I Can't Turn You Loose" – composed by Otis Redding; instrumental performed by the Blues Brothers band (their theme song)
• "Let the Good Times Roll" – composed and performed by Louis Jordan
• "Anema e Core" – performed by Ezio Pinza
• "Quando, Quando, Quando" – performed by Murph and the MagicTones
• "Just the Way You Are" – composed by Billy Joel; performed by uncredited group
• "Die Romantiker" - composed by Joseph Lanner (1801–1843), performed by uncredited group (background music in the Chez Paul restaurant scene.)
• "Boom Boom" – composed by John Lee Hooker; performed by John Lee Hooker (as "Street Slim"), vocals and guitar' Big Walter Horton (as "Tampa Pete"), harmonica. Pinetop Perkins (as "Luther Jackson") electric piano; Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, drums; Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson, guitar; Calvin "Fuzz" Jones, bass
• "Mama Lawdy"/"Boogie Chillen'" – composed and performed by John Lee Hooker
• "Your Cheatin' Heart" – composed by Hank Williams; performed by Kitty Wells (heard when Jake and Elwood first enter Bob's Country Bunker)
• "Stand by Your Man" – composed by Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill; performed by the Blues Brothers
• "I'm Walkin'" – performed by Fats Domino
• "Ride of the Valkyries" – composed by Richard Wagner; performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
• "The Girl from Ipanema" – composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim; performed by an uncredited group (background music while the brothers are in the elevator to the assessor's office.)

Sequel

Main article: Blues Brothers 2000

The 1998 sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, had similar traits to the original, including large car chase scenes and musical numbers. John Landis returned to direct the film and Dan Aykroyd reprised his role, joining John Goodman, Joe Morton, and 10-year-old J. Evan Bonifant as the new Blues Brothers. Aretha Franklin and James Brown were among the celebrities returning from the first film. There were also musical performances by Sam Moore, Wilson Pickett, Paul Shaffer, B. B. King, and Eric Clapton, among others. Dozens of artists were packed into an all-star band called The Louisiana Gator Boys.

The film was considered a box office fa‘ilure, only generating a little over $14 million in box office sales on an approximate $28 million budget.

See also

• List of American films of 1980
• Blues Brothers: Private
• The Blues Brothers (video game)

External links

• The Blues Brothers official site
• The Blues Brothers at IMDb
  • The Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers' at IMDb
• The Blues Brothers at AllMovie
• The Blues Brothers at Box Office Mojo
• The Blues Brothers at Rotten Tomatoes
• Guide to every scene in the film (including music, locations, actors, and trivia)
• Original script containing additional scenes
• Chicago filming locations based on Google Maps