There's a delicious irony in the fact that the deceased John Belushi - co-founder of The Blues Brothers with fellow Saturday Night Live comic actor, Dan Ackroyd - was an avid punk-rock fan. It's ironic because to some people The Blues Brothers concept/franchise equals soft and easy entertainment, the musical equivalent of a business operation with a low-common-denominator factor.
John Belushi's introduction to punk rock in New York, when he saw The Dead Boys play in Manhattan in the late 1970s, was initially epiphanic: he loved its brutality, its contempt of middleclass hypocrisy, its unsentimentality, its regular hilarity and occasional lawlessness. He loved blues music, too, but of the stark kind, while his social background (he was pure Albanian, a territory that was off limits as far as satire went) precluded insincere bonhomie. Presumably, he would have sneered at the cuddly cosiness of The Blues Brothers if he had been alive today. Jake and Elwood Blues (Belushi and Ackroyd in black suits, white shirts, thin black ties and cool shades attire; not so much a uniform as a sartorial ploy on behalf of 1950s bluesmen to prevent them from being arrested as vagrants) were first created in the early 1970s. In New York, the duo performed at the Lone Star Cafe with Willie Nelson and Room Full Of Blues, initially as a back-up band before eventually being integrated into the 1977/1978 season of Saturday Night Live. Belushi and Ackroyd's characterisations performed straight versions of blues songs, confusing the audience, which didn't know whether to take matters at face value or if there was comic intent behind the act.
As The Blues Brothers' popularity grew, so did Belushi and Ackroyd's commitment to honing an act that would stand up to critical and consumer comparison. Enlisting a core of well-known musicians and sessioners, they seriously fought to bring blues and R&B back into the mainstream of the American consciousness. In 1978, The Blues Brothers released their debut album, Briefcase Full Of Blues, garnering a Number 1 hit single (Soul Man) and sales reaching the three million mark. A series of concert performances came next, with Belushi and Ackroyd in serious-character mode packing out venues. Success was all too easy to enjoy.
John and Danny, recorded Belushi biographer Bob Woodward in Wired: The Short Life And Fast Times Of John Belushi, "absorbed by their roles, addressed each other as Elwood and Jake in private, taking on their outlaw identities. John loved his rock-star fantasy, and the role of Jake made it come true. It was not just a parttime stage show any more. When John put on his black suit, shades and porkpie hat, he was a rock star".
Inevitably, the film came next, co-written by Belushi, Ackroyd, and the film's director John Landis. Belushi offered the script to Universal, who could hardly say no: despite being a known drug user and loose canon, Belushi was a star from his "grossout" appearance in the Frat comedy, Animal House.
In 1980, The Blues Brothers was released to a pasting from the critics, who likened it to a shaggy dog cocking its leg indiscriminately at every American popular cultural landmark from the 1950s onwards. The pointed directness of the Saturday Night Live sequences - where Belushi and Ackroyd broached genuine prejudices with an acute satirical edge - sadly evolved into blowout indulgences, a keen energy dissipated by a need to keep the laffs coming. By rights, it should have been a grand journey echoing the frailty and humour of the music it purported to celebrate. In fact, it was nothing short of chaotic. An almost $30 million extravaganza, ($11 million over the original budget, a sum used in the final scenes for one of the most spectacular and pointless car chases in cinema history), the movie was often blunt and patronising, resembling a TV variety show rather than a tightly scripted and structured movie it could easily have been.
There's always an upside, though, isn't there? Initially failing at the box office, the film went on to become one of the top pop cult films of the past 25 years, mirroring the likes of Little Shop Of Horrors and The Rocky Horror Show by also taking to the stage. The death of John Belushi in 1982 (from cocaine and heroin abuse) undoubtedly added to its broad cult appeal. The music in the film, provided by a series of soul and blues greats, including Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker, also prompted a good time to be had by all.
While others have tried to emulate the movie's success, the stage show approved by Dan Ackroyd and Judi Belushi (Belushi's widow) continues to send 'em home sweating. This year, however, sees the show's final outing for a number of years. For fans of its unrelenting energy, this is indeed a blow; for people tired of what they perceive to be blues-by-numbers for those unable to differentiate between B. B. King and Don Baker, it's a huge relief.
It seems the fans will have the last laugh, however. Dan Ackroyd and John Landis are currently enjoying a US Top 10 box office hit with Blues Brothers 2000. Ackroyd's partner on this occasion is played by John Goodman, a self-professed R&B buff. A sequel in real time - in that it picks up the Blues Brothers' story exactly 18 years on from the original - according to Landis, the movie has a "lot more heart than the first one in that it's made by middleaged people as opposed to kids".
Dan Ackroyd, a co-director for House Of Blues, a coast-to-coast restaurant, nightclub and entertainment company, says: "I think of how great it would be if John were here with us and how much he would enjoy what we're doing. I miss him, but I know he's here in spirit."
Perhaps, but something tells me John Belushi would rather engage in a somewhat more undiluted version of his belief in the blues and his desire to popularise the music he loved: more tradition, less show, and even less business.
The Official Tribute To The Blues Brothers is at The Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, from March 23rd-April 4th. Blues Brothers 2000 opens here in May.