The Blues Brothers
On a mission from God to reunite their scattered band, two brothers in black suits travel a road where the giants of Black American popular music step forward one by one and clear the way with their own songs.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The people behind it ⏳🌊
- ComposerElmer Bernstein
Reuniting with Landis after Animal House, he wrote brief original cues, among them a humming chorus.
- DirectorJohn Landis
He shaped Aykroyd's sprawling draft into a shooting script and gave each of the greats a scene of their own.
- ScreenplayDan Aykroyd
He played Elwood, and with the first screenplay he ever wrote, he built the film's backbone.
- LeadJohn Belushi
As Jake, swinging between singing and somersaults, he became the face of the band.
- ConductingIra Newborn
He served as music director and conductor of the soundtrack, leading the recordings of the band and its guests.
I. Brothers from television
(Origins) “The Blues Brothers” came out of NBC's “Saturday Night Live.” John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, dressed as the brothers Jake and Elwood in black suits, fedoras and sunglasses, sang rhythm and blues. The brief sketch grew into a real band, and when its first album, “Briefcase Full of Blues,” sold strongly, a film followed. Universal won the bidding for the rights. Direction went to John Landis, who had worked with Belushi on “Animal House.” (Screenplay) Aykroyd had never written a screenplay before. The first draft he turned in ran 324 pages, about three times the length of an ordinary script. Landis spent roughly two weeks shaping it into a shooting script, and filming began that summer in and around Chicago. (Composer) The original score went to Elmer Bernstein, the Hollywood veteran known for “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Magnificent Seven.” Years earlier, with “The Man with the Golden Arm,” he had brought jazz into film scoring. He had already worked with Landis on “Animal House.” In this film, though, his share is small. The best-known example is a short cue beneath the scene in which the brothers speak of their mission from God — a piece in which a choir holds long, wordless tones, often called the 'God music.' (Band) At the heart of the film's music are the songs. Guitarist Steve Cropper and bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, both from Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and guitarist Matt Murphy, who had played with Howlin' Wolf, held down the rhythm. Above them stood the horns of Tom Malone, Lou Marini and Alan Rubin. Ira Newborn served as music director and conductor. Then Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Cab Calloway and John Lee Hooker appear one after another, and the film becomes a pilgrimage that strings half a century of Black American popular music on a single thread.
II. Release and revelation
(Release) The film opens at Joliet prison in Illinois. As Jake, his sentence served, collects his belongings and walks out through the steel gate, the blues plays. Elwood comes to meet him in a battered car converted from an old police cruiser. The brothers call it the Bluesmobile. That the film opens not with boisterous show music but with an unhurried blues tells us in advance what kind of work this is. (Orphanage) The first place the brothers visit is the Catholic orphanage where they grew up. The mother superior tells them that unless five thousand dollars in back taxes is paid, the orphanage will close. The brothers, who lace every sentence with profanity, get their knuckles rapped with a ruler and are thrown out. Curtis, the caretaker who works in the basement, calls them over and urges them to go to church. He is the man who first played the blues for the brothers when they were boys. (Church) At the Triple Rock Baptist Church, the Reverend Cleophus James, played by James Brown, turns his sermon into song. As the choir rises and the congregation dances, Jake sees the light. The revelation: put the band back together and raise the money with a show. From then on, whatever they do, the brothers invoke their mission from God. The phrase recurs until the film's end, as both a joke and a sincere conviction. (Chase) Right after the revelation, the brothers run a signal and are chased by the police. The song Elwood plays on the car's 8-track tape deck is by Sam & Dave. Fleeing the police, the brothers drive right into a shopping mall. The scene was shot in a shuttered mall in Harvey, south of Chicago. Most of the film's music arrives this way — performed live onstage or pouring from radios and records. There is almost no background score steering emotion from offscreen.
It accompanies Jake's exit from Joliet prison and the Bluesmobile's first appearance, and it is the first track on the official album.
- The original was written by the blues musicians Taj Mahal and Yank Rachell. It follows the old blues convention of likening a departed lover to a train.
- An unhurried, plodding shuffle rhythm (a rhythm that sways between alternating long and short notes) matches the steps of a man walking out of prison.
- On the album version, a baritone saxophone that never appears on screen lies thick beneath the horns. The difference in sound between the film and the album is often remarked upon.
- By opening with a slow blues instead of a flashy show number, the film declares first that, before it is a comedy, it is a tribute to music.
The moment James Brown's preacher turns his sermon into song, Jake sees the light. This is the song that sets the story's mission.
- This is gospel (the praise music of the Black church), sung with the Rev. James Cleveland's choir. It is worth listening for Chaka Khan's voice among the choir.
- The preacher throws out a line and the choir and congregation answer it — a call and response showing that the roots of rhythm and blues and soul lie in the church.
- Unlike the other performers, who mostly lip-synced to prerecorded songs, this number was recorded with live singing on the Universal set. Additional sound was layered on later.
- After this song, the brothers' recurring talk of a mission from God sounds like a joke and yet sincere.
III. The scattered band
(The search) The old band had scattered far and wide. The keyboardist Murph and a few of the horn players are playing inoffensive tunes like “Quando, Quando, Quando” in a Holiday Inn lounge. The trumpeter has become maître d' at the upscale restaurant Chez Paul, presiding over a dining room filled with Joseph Lanner's Viennese waltzes. The brothers deliberately make a scene in the restaurant to drag him out. The distance between the genteel waltz and the blues becomes the joke itself. (Music store) At Ray's music store, where they stop to buy instruments, Ray Charles appears as the owner. Blind, he pounds the keys himself to prove that a battered electric piano works just fine. One by one, people in the street outside begin to dance. The deal is closed on credit, and that debt weighs on the brothers until the end. (Diner) Guitarist Matt Murphy runs a soul food diner with his wife. She is played by Aretha Franklin. When her husband tries to go back to life in a wandering band, she confronts him in song, still in her apron. It is her big hit, re-recorded for the film. The diner's customers and staff form the chorus. (Market) On Chicago's Maxwell Street, John Lee Hooker appears as a street musician playing “Boom Boom.” It is only a brief scene as the brothers pass by, but it shows that the blues, which came north from Mississippi to the cities, is alive on the pavement. As the band comes together piece by piece, each master either helps or blocks the brothers with a single song of their own. Each takes one song and makes the stage their own.
When music-store owner Ray Charles tries out a battered electric piano, the whole street turns into a dance floor.
- It was originally a dance tune from the early 1960s. The fun lies in the song's rattling off of the dance crazes of the day.
- Ray Charles appears as a blind shopkeeper. The moment he sits at the keyboard, the scene changes hands.
- The brothers only sing backup. The arrangement — the master sings, the heroes support — looks like the etiquette of the film's entire score.
- The scene in which the playing that begins inside the shop spreads into dancing among passersby in the street seems to mimic the ensemble numbers of movie musicals.
To hold back her husband, who wants to return to a wandering band, diner owner Aretha Franklin confronts him in song, still in her apron.
- Her own hit from 1968, re-recorded for the film. This time the same song sounds like words hurled at a husband in a marital quarrel.
- As the refrain repeats and gathers speed, the diner's staff join in as a chorus. One woman's protest swells into a chorus of many.
- Franklin, it is said, was unused to lip-syncing to a prerecorded track, and the scene had to be reshot several times.
- Even after the song ends, the story does not go her way. That mismatch is the joke of the scene.
IV. The stage behind the chicken wire
(Mix-up) Looking for a place to play, the brothers walk into Bob's Country Bunker, a country bar near Kokomo, Indiana. The slot had actually been booked by another country band, and the brothers take the stage by pretending to be that band. At the entrance, Kitty Wells is singing a Hank Williams song. It is the least likely place for a rhythm and blues band to walk into. (Chicken wire) Chicken wire is strung across the front of the stage. The moment the band launches into its first number, “Gimme Some Lovin',” beer bottles come flying. The sound of bottles shattering against the wire mixes in like an accompaniment. It is a scene in which the music the audience wants collides head-on with the music the band has. (Conversion) The song Elwood comes up with on the spot is “Rawhide,” the theme from the Western TV series. The moment the cowboy's cattle-driving song begins, the mood in the room turns at once. In the “Stand By Your Man” that follows, Jake sings the country ballad in earnest. Though their bar tab comes to more than their fee, the band makes it through the night. (The price) When the real country band arrives, the brothers stick them with the tab and flee. Now that band joins the crowd chasing the brothers. The police, the Illinois Nazis and a mysterious woman are already on their trail. The scene shows that musical success depends less on playing skill than on choosing the right song. The brothers survive thanks to choosing “Rawhide.” It is also the passage where the band's cheek in crossing the borders between genres shows most clearly.
In a country bar where beer bottles come flying, the western theme Elwood picks turns the mood of the crowd in an instant.
- The theme song of a television Western, written by Dimitri Tiomkin, composer of “High Noon.” Its beat, imitating the crack of a whip, calls to mind a cattle drive.
- As rhythm and blues horns and rhythm section play a country tune, the fun comes from translating one genre into the idiom of another.
- If the preceding “Gimme Some Lovin'” brought on the sound of bottles hitting the chicken wire, this song brings on applause. Same band, different song — and a different reception.
- The original plan was to give the film an intermission and to open the second half with a reprise of this song.
V. The waiting audience
(Publicity) The concert is booked for the Palace Hotel Ballroom, a big dance hall on the outskirts of Chicago. The brothers mount a loudspeaker on the roof of the Bluesmobile and drive around the city announcing the show. Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’” plays as they go. But the publicity also tells everyone hunting them exactly where they will be. On the night of the show, blues fans, police and an angry country band all crowd into the audience together. (Late) The brothers themselves fail to arrive on time. As the crowd grows restless, Curtis, the orphanage’s caretaker, takes the stage. He is played by Cab Calloway, the bandleader who ruled Harlem’s Cotton Club in the 1930s. In a white tailcoat, he sings his signature song, “Minnie the Moocher.” (Response) Calloway tosses out a phrase in scat, nonsense syllables sung to a rhythm, and has the audience sing it straight back. This game of call and response quickly pulls the turning-ugly room together. If the music fought the audience at the country bar in the previous chapter, here it soothes them. (Lineage) The scene shows how far back the film reaches. The stage of the swing era, a generation older than the brothers’ blues and soul, comes back to life intact. Charlie Parker’s bebop, portrayed in this series’ “Bird,” branched off from the big-band jazz of Calloway’s generation. There is a reason, too, that Curtis is cast as the brothers’ musical father. Before the brothers take the stage, the music they inherited takes it first.
While the brothers are running late, Curtis, the orphanage caretaker, takes the stage in a white tailcoat and holds the restless crowd with a single song of his own.
- Cab Calloway wrote this signature song himself and made it a hit in 1931. The weight of the scene lies in the same man singing it again half a century later.
- The song’s backbone is call and response: a phrase tossed out in scat, nonsense syllables set to a rhythm, which the audience echoes exactly.
- Calloway reportedly wanted a disco arrangement, the fashion of the day, but Landis insisted on the original big-band arrangement.
- The melody opens in a minor key, casting the dusky mood of a tale of the night streets. Even so, the performance stays buoyant to the end.
VI. Two songs and an exit
(Entrance) At last the brothers arrive, and the band greets them with Otis Redding’s “I Can’t Turn You Loose.” The song is the band’s regular entrance music. Elwood picks up his harmonica, and Jake addresses the crowd like a preacher. Then Solomon Burke’s “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” begins. The revelation received in church finally returns, on this stage, as a performance. (Chicago) The second song is Robert Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago.” In it a Mississippi bluesman sings of the promised city to the north, and it is all but the film’s hometown anthem. The band stretches the song out, making room for each member to take a solo in turn. The version on the record runs nearly 8 minutes. (The offer) Backstage, a record-company man buttonholes the brothers. He holds out $10,000 in cash as an advance on a recording contract and even shows them a secret way out of the building. It is more than enough to pay both the orphanage’s taxes and the tab at the music store. The audience is packed with police. So the band keeps playing, and under cover of the sound the brothers slip away. (The woman) In an underground passage, the brothers come face to face once more with the woman who has been gunning for them throughout the film. Who she is, played by Carrie Fisher, I will not reveal here. Suffice it to say that the scene plays out in dialogue alone, without music. Against the din of the stage just before, the silence only makes it funnier. Upstairs, the band is still playing “Sweet Home Chicago.”
The first song the brothers sing on finally reaching the Palace Hotel Ballroom. The revelation they received in church comes back as a performance.
- The original is a 1964 soul number by Solomon Burke. Before the song, Jake speaks to the crowd the way a preacher delivers a sermon.
- Beginning in speech and passing into song, the structure sounds like a church sermon and hymn carried over wholesale.
- The record version has a female chorus overdubbed. The band in the film has no backing singers apart from the brothers. The chorus arrangement was by Paul Shaffer.
- Elwood’s harmonica weaves among the horns, linking the brothers’ two voices.
VII. The last chase and jailhouse rock
(The chase) The brothers race with the money to the county building in downtown Chicago. Behind them come dozens of police cars, the National Guard, a band of Nazis and the country band. At the time of its release, the sequence set the record for the most cars wrecked in a film. As the Nazis drive along an unfinished elevated highway, Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” plays. The grandiose operatic music only makes them more ridiculous. (The elevator) As the brothers ride the elevator up to the tax office on a high floor, “The Girl from Ipanema” plays. Outside, the building is being surrounded; inside, a bossa nova everyone knows drifts along at its leisure. That mismatch is the kind of joke this film loves. (The ending) In the final scene the band plays “Jailhouse Rock,” written by Leiber and Stoller and sung by Elvis Presley. Where that stage is and who sits in the audience, I recommend you see for yourself. Still, the title already hints at a great deal about the ending. The song carries straight into the end credits. There, James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin each sing a line. The greats who appeared one by one throughout the film gather in a single song at the end. (Legacy) The soundtrack album reached No. 13 on the Billboard album chart. “Gimme Some Lovin’” climbed to No. 18 on the singles chart. In 2020 the film was added to the U.S. National Film Registry. The 1950s rock and roll portrayed in this series’ “La Bamba” came from the same era as this final song. The film called the greats back to the screen at a time when their music was fading from memory.
The song the band plays in the final scene, carrying on into the end credits. Where that stage is, you should see for yourself.
- A rock and roll number written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and recorded by Elvis Presley in 1957. The title slyly hints at the ending.
- A short horn riff, punched out bar by bar, drives the whole song.
- In the end credits James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin each take a line. The greats who appeared one at a time in the film meet again inside a single song.
- By ending on rock and roll rooted in the rhythm and blues of Black songwriters, the film brings the musical lineage it has traveled full circle.
Lesser-known stories
Aykroyd’s 324-page first draft was as unusual in appearance as in content. He bound the manuscript in the cover of a Los Angeles phone book, and where the author’s name belonged he wrote a fake machine name, Scriptatron GL-9000. Closer to free-form prose than a screenplay, the draft helps explain why the film came to string together scenes and songs rather than follow a plot. The country bar scene originally included the band singing “Sink the Bismarck,” Johnny Horton’s 1960 country hit. Landis and Aykroyd intended to release the film as an epic with an intermission. The plan was to end the first half with this song and open the second half with “Rawhide.” But when the running time was cut, the song was dropped. Landis played the recording once on the radio program “The Dr. Demento Show” in August 1980, just after the release, but the footage has never been made public and is presumed lost. The 1980 album was a single LP of eleven tracks. Decades later, a two-disc expanded edition was planned, with “Stand By Your Man,” John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom,” alternate takes and Bernstein’s original score, but the project was ultimately canceled. Bernstein’s music is little remembered in this film largely because his cues were short to begin with. That the album and the film sound different is talk mostly traded among diehard fans. The album features players who never appear in the film, such as Tom Scott and Steve Jordan. It also contains a baritone saxophone and a female chorus never seen on screen. What you heard in the theater and what you hear at home were, from the start, two different versions.
Terminology notes 📚🔎
Rhythm and blues (R&B)
(Meaning) The name joins rhythm and blues. The American record industry began using it in the late 1940s as an umbrella term for popular music aimed at Black listeners. (In film and musical theater) Music that adds a strong, danceable beat to the scales and feeling of the blues. Most of the songs the brothers’ band plays in this film belong here. Just as your body falls into the beat on its own when someone claps steadily while you jump rope in gym class, rhythm and blues sets its song on top of a beat that moves the body first. (Elsewhere) On today’s streaming charts, R&B often refers to the sleek, pop-ballad-style songs of the 1990s onward. They sound quite different from the R&B of this film.
Soul
(Meaning) The English word soul means the spirit, the inner self. The name arose because the music carried the fervent singing style of gospel (church praise music) over into secular love songs. (In film and musical theater) A style of song that flowered in the 1960s with singers such as Aretha Franklin, Solomon Burke and Otis Redding. It is marked by a voice pushed to its limit, bent and shouted. Think of how, when a choir director at a competition tells you to sing from the heart, the same lyrics become far more aching. Soul singers make that ache the baseline of the entire song. (Elsewhere) In everyday speech it also names the traditional food of America’s Black community, as in “soul food.” Aretha Franklin’s diner in the film is exactly that kind of place.
Horn section (wind section)
(Meaning) A horn was originally an animal’s horn. The name comes from trumpets made of horn and now covers wind instruments in general, such as the trumpet, trombone and saxophone. Section means a group or part. (In film and musical theater) A group of three or four wind instruments within a band that blow short, punchy lines together as one block to support the song. In the Blues Brothers Band, the job fell to Tom Malone, Lou Marini and Alan Rubin. It is like a cheering squad: when several people shout a short chant at once, it carries far more force than one voice alone. A horn section, too, gains its power when several instruments play as one body.
Call and response (megigo batgi)
(Meaning) In Korean folk song, megida ('to lead off') means the lead singer sings a phrase first, and batgi ('receiving') means the rest take up that phrase in reply. The English call and response carries the same meaning of a call and an answer. (In film and musical theater) A practice in which one person sings out and the group answers with the same words or melody. It passed from African work songs and Black church worship into rhythm and blues and soul. In this film, the preacher and choir in “The Old Landmark” and Calloway and the audience in “Minnie the Moocher” trade lines this way. If you have ever played the game at a retreat where the host shouts a chant and everyone shouts back the set reply, that is call and response.
Scat
(In film and musical theater) A jazz singing style that improvises nonsense syllables, in place of lyrics, over rhythm and melody. In effect, the voice is used like an instrument such as a trumpet or saxophone. Cab Calloway is counted as the man who made it a stage spectacle in the 1930s. If you have ever hummed along to the beat with ‘la la la’ or ‘doobie doobie’ when you couldn’t remember the words, you have taken your first step in scat. A scat singer deliberately polishes that humming into something dazzling and intricate.
Lip-sync (playback)
(Meaning) The English lip-sync is short for synchronizing the lips with the sound. Playback means replaying something recorded in advance. (In film and musical theater) For a film’s song scenes, the song is usually recorded first, and on set the recording is played while the actor matches mouth and movement to it. That way the sound stays identical no matter how many angles are reshot. In this film Aretha Franklin was shot this way, while James Brown’s church scene was recorded with him actually singing. It is the same principle as making a school talent-show video by recording the song first, filming the picture separately and joining them later. (Elsewhere) On television, lip-syncing means a singer mouthing along to a recording while pretending to perform live. It is usually said as a reproach, but in filmmaking it is a standard production method.
Vocalise
(Meaning) The French vocalise comes from making sound with the voice (voix). Originally it meant an exercise in which a singer warms up by running up and down a scale on a single vowel. (In film and musical theater) A song that carries a melody on vowels alone, such as ‘ah,’ without words. In film music, choral vocalise is often used to create a mysterious or sacred atmosphere. The short cues Elmer Bernstein wrote for this film also have the choir sustaining wordless tones, lending a playful sanctity whenever the brothers speak of their mission from God. If you have ever run up and down do-re-mi on a single ‘ah’ as a vocal exercise in music class, that is where vocalise begins.