Recounting reminiscences from John Belushi’s highschool classmates and Dan Aykroyd’s school theater pals, the ebook paints an image of two very divergent upbringings leading to two wildly totally different performers whose concepts of comedy someway overlapped sufficient to grow to be lifelong associates. Their circuitous routes to Saturday Night Live are dotted with a blinding ardour for genuine music (Belushi for heavy steel and ultimately R&B, Aykroyd for electrical blues), which inevitably made its method into their performances (each onstage and off).
While Aykroyd and Belushi had totally different outlooks, their yin and yang developed into a robust inventive partnership which pushed the envelope of what comedy on tv might be, all of the whereas holding all-night events at Aykroyd’s secret blues bar the place Keith Richards and Francis Ford Coppola poured drinks behind the counter. While the background of the 2 whirlwind comedians is compelling and well-told, the rubber actually hits the highway because the characteristic movie begins coming into focus. The ebook recounts anecdote after anecdote concerning the course of, the characters, the stunts, and the visitor stars, every extra eye-gogglingly not possible than the final.
A quick checklist of discoveries from the ebook:
• The identify “Elwood” got here from Elwood Glover, a chat present host whom Aykroyd thought was “the most boring man on Canadian television.”
• The signature Ray Ban sun shades had been worn out of necessity since Aykroyd’s insecurities made him reluctant to make eye contact and Belushi’s eyes had been at all times bloodshot because of his fixed debauchery.
• The SNL musicians would carry round little decoy “Belushi Bottles” of cocaine with solely a tiny bit remaining as a result of if Belushi acquired a maintain of their precise stash it could be hoovered up immediately.
• The Blues Brothers’ debut album Briefcase Full of Blues listed the 2 comedy superstars’ precise names solely on the again of the report jacket as “very special thanks to Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi” (and the album charted greater than precise post-war blues albums by B.B. King and Muddy Waters).
• Belushi had a behavior of repeatedly setting his mattress on hearth whereas falling asleep smoking. (Three packs of cigarettes a day, cocaine behavior, Quaalude dependancy, amphetamines, common doses of mescaline).
• Dan Aykroyd almost misplaced the one copy of the script as he was nonetheless ending it. After a frenzied search of the 30 Rock workplaces, he discovered the pages in a stack of previous SNL scripts, supposed for the shredder.
• The authentic script was 324 pages lengthy (most film screenplays are between 95 and 125 pages in size) and he hand-delivered them to movie business executives wrapped within the torn-off covers of cellphone books.
• The movie’s authentic finances was $10 million however ultimately ballooned to $27.5 million, which was greater than Steven Spielberg spent on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
• Landis wished B.B. King to be one of the Rhythm and Blues luminaries within the film, however King’s supervisor indicated that the guitar legend was too busy touring to seem within the movie. King later was crushed when he discovered his administration had handed.
• After the movie’s launch, Cab Calloway’s long-dormant profession was revived, resulting in a flurry of bookings for his new Big Band, strutting round in a zoot swimsuit performing “Minnie the Moocher” effectively previous the age of 70.
• The rampant destruction of the deserted shopping center (which was full of rotting produce and shortly crammed with automobile exhaust and burning rubber) resulted in just one small harm which required two stitches.
• Chicago’s new mayor, Jane Byrne, had confronted a lot vitriol and misogyny from staffers who had labored for her predecessor Richard J. Daley, that she gleefully gave permission for the movie crew to crash automobiles into his namesake Daley Plaza.
• During the quiet elevator scene close to the top of the film, a schmaltzy Muzak model of Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “The Girl from Ipanema” performs overhead as a kind of retribution since director John Landis wished to make use of a parody model of the tune in Animal House however Jobim would not permit it.
• Landis initially wished to drop the orange Pinto pushed by the hated Illinois Nazis from a peak of “I don’t know, five, six thousand feet?” however he ultimately agreed on twelve hundred toes (the peak of the John Hancock Building). While this was decrease than the director initially wished, it was nonetheless so excessive that THE FAA HAD TO CERTIFY THE PINTO AS AN AIRCRAFT.
In addition to the detailed biographical information and the behind-the-scenes movie analysis, the writer is a longtime music author (and occasional contributor to AllMusic), and delivers a wealthy degree of element about electrical blues, the music tradition of the ’70s (together with Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park), and insights into the movie’s musical visitor stars (Cab Calloway, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown and others). The ebook lovingly tells the story of a high-speed journey that soars triumphantly and expectedly (assuming the reader is conscious of the destiny of John Belushi) crashes on the finish.
The Blues Brothers – An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic is out there now from Grove Atlantic and your native bookstore.
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