[Harp-L] Blues Brothers - was George Carlin

["46long Blake" <46long@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm sure that the subtle jab was also at Jim Belushi.

But I gotta defend the Blues Brothers....at least the film.  First of all,
Ackroyd and (particularly) Belushi were a fun act. They made for a good
party band doing decent versions of great songs. And I doubt anyone's
knocking the talent of the backing band.

But the film works on so many levels. Sure there's the comedy, explosions,
and car chases.  But under all of that is a deep reverence for the roots of
Blues, and a very gritty perspective at times - at least the DVD version,
which takes a lot more time looking at the blue collar / working poor
aspects. From the silent opening shots of the steel mills before the camera
takes us to Joliet, to the focus on the Brothers as being orphans taught the
blues by gaslight in the boiler room by Cab Calloway's character, to the
extended street scenes by the diner and Ray's Music Exchange.....even though
the movie was successful for the cheap laughs, if you watch the "uncut"
version, you get a sense that there is more at the heart of the film.

This, of course, has nothing to do with the sequel, or the abberration that
has become the Blues Brothers "industry".......or the actors still
associated with it......

 - Blake


On 10/4/07, Bob Cohen <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> On Oct 4, 2007, at 11:34 AM, Buck Wolf wrote:
>
> > Really, what Carlin was talking about was white movie stars who
> > think their stardom automatically make them musical artists.
>
> I know. But he touched on an issue that comes up around here and in
> the blues world.  People struggle for authenticity and confuse an art
> form's roots with what happens to it when it becomes part of the
> culture.  Similar arguments about authenticity were made in ballet as
> recently as the early 60s (and is perhaps are still advanced by some)
> namely that black women couldn't dance ballet because they had the
> wrong body shapes.  And what about classical music?  Isn't it
> patently absurd to say that a black musician can't play Mozart
> because he's not white?  The list goes on and on.  Sadly so many
> forget that we're all human beings and have many more similarities
> the differences.  Are you old enough to remember the STAR TREK in
> which there were people from a planet that were half black and half
> white?  Some were black on the left side, some on the right.  And
> that was cause for fighing. It's just silly.
>
> > Wasn't this just a not so subtle jab at Bruce Willis and Dan Aykroyd?
>
> A not so subtle jab, I'd say. :-)
>
> > And say what you want about Aykroyd's harmonica playing. Still,
> > many blues players say that Aykroyd's done a lot of good for blues
> > players.
>
> Well I'm not embarrassed to admit that the BLUES BROTHERS skits, the
> movie, and the soundtrack were my on-ramp to Blues Highway.  I always
> liked the bluesier rock and roll but didn't really know that its
> roots went deep into American culture.  I thought that sound came
> from England.
>
> Bob
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