whole concert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTpiL_Leg-Q
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, 27 August 2018 09:41 (five years ago) link
Feels like there's a trajectory from "Shout" in Animal House to this to the Lee Atwater / yuppie era that killed popular 12-bar blues by the early 90s.
there's a lot of other little steps along the way, usually involving white people's (and ONLY white people's) reification of 60s R&B - from the Big Chill to the Commitments. But idk seeing people diss this movie for its impact on the music industry or the way it handled the music is strange. Never knew this movie had detractors to be honest.
― Οὖτις, Monday, 27 August 2018 16:11 (five years ago) link
“Back to the Future” had a white teenager from 1985 retroactively inspiring Chuck Berry, and somehow rock 'n roll survived...
― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Monday, 27 August 2018 16:21 (five years ago) link
Not knocking the movie with that comment ^, only thinking through its popularity and how it connected the music with being a rebel, etc. xpost
― ... (Eazy), Monday, 27 August 2018 16:23 (five years ago) link
this movie has problems unless you find endless vehicular mayhem endlessly funny
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 16:25 (five years ago) link
also, as someone pointed out at the time, Belushi's eyebrows were one of his comic assets and he only takes the shades off once.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 16:26 (five years ago) link
right, there's obviously some sloppy + stupid stuff in it, I had just never previously heard it criticized specifically for the way it handled the music
xp
― Οὖτις, Monday, 27 August 2018 16:27 (five years ago) link
morbs can you remember *who* said that abt belushi's eyebrows? i assumed i'd remembered it from pauline kael's review but no
― mark s, Monday, 27 August 2018 16:31 (five years ago) link
i thought it might've been Kael; it's def a US contemporary critic
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 16:33 (five years ago) link
Belushi's attempt at an ingratiating accent when they show up at Bob's Country Bunker always gets me.
― omar little, Monday, 27 August 2018 16:46 (five years ago) link
David Denby slammed the film in New York magazine for being overblown in general and giving short shrift to the cameo stars:
https://books.google.com/books?id=5uUCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52#v=onepage&q&f=false
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 16:55 (five years ago) link
maybe the eyebrows line was from Janet Maslin in the NY Times
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 17:03 (five years ago) link
I thought it was Roger Ebert, but I didn't see it in his review (which is online).
― grawlix (unperson), Monday, 27 August 2018 17:12 (five years ago) link
lol this is now going to drive me nuts >:(
― mark s, Monday, 27 August 2018 17:24 (five years ago) link
ha this is playing at the Castro next week and my daughter expressed interest after seeing the Aretha clip, maybe we'll go
― Οὖτις, Monday, 27 August 2018 17:43 (five years ago) link
xp It wasn't Janet Maslin. She panned the film btw, only complimenting Aretha Franklin's performance (and said even that scene was badly edited).
― Josefa, Monday, 27 August 2018 18:18 (five years ago) link
when i was growing up i never knew it could possibly have been panned, since it's generally really entertaining and funny and the music is good (albeit the loosest definition of the blues.) I guess I get it now, but I don't agree. sure the car pileup comedy isn't really funny, except in the absurd sense. but the BBs underplaying everything while it goes to hell around them still works.
i like how it's pretty respectful overall, even if the respect is often awkward. and it's still refreshing to see a movie where there's zero "scary" bits involving the inner city scenes (cf. Adventures in Babysitting, Animal House, any number of other films too numerous to mention.)
the most (comedy) tense bits involve a nun, a country bar (that's a different kind of problematic, i agree), the cops, and a fancy Near North restaurant.
― omar little, Monday, 27 August 2018 19:10 (five years ago) link
the nun is of course Kathleen Freeman, of Jerry Lewis' rep company and Singin' in the Rain ("rrrround tones").
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 19:18 (five years ago) link
oh WOW I had never made that connection!!
― Οὖτις, Monday, 27 August 2018 19:22 (five years ago) link
and I watch Singin in the Rain once a year :(
She also in the Americanized Broadway musical of The Full Monty with terminal cancer, and stayed with it until 5 days before her death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Freeman
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 19:28 (five years ago) link
She panned the film btw, only complimenting Aretha Franklin's performance (and said even that scene was badly edited).
supposedly the performance part of the Aretha scene came out the way it did was that she had problems nailing both the lip-syncing and the choreography (something she'd never had to do to such a degree before or after), so they had to kind of edit around her at times when they just didn't have usable footage for certain parts.
― Ubering With The King (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 27 August 2018 20:00 (five years ago) link
and also, Landis cut off the sax player's head. (foreshadowing of Vic Morrow)
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 20:07 (five years ago) link
*rimshot*
― Οὖτις, Monday, 27 August 2018 20:16 (five years ago) link
It's interesting to read what the early-80s NYC media had to say, but please...the Blues Brothers (and Landis etc in general) is a classic example of a chasm between critics and ticket-buyers.
― everything, Monday, 27 August 2018 23:20 (five years ago) link
isn't John lee Hooker onscreen for about 45 seconds?
this was enough to make quite an impression on young me
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 01:16 (five years ago) link
And he's not on the album?
― Mark G, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 10:56 (five years ago) link
Nope. With the exception of "The Old Landmark" (James Brown with the Rev. James Cleveland Choir), everything on the soundtrack album is recorded by the Blues Brothers band, either with Belushi & Aykroyd ("She Caught the Katy," "Gimme Some Lovin'") or with whichever guests (Aretha, Ray, Cab Calloway).
None of the other songs in the film -- Sam & Dave, Fats Domino, John Lee Hooker, Louis Jordan -- are on the soundtrack record.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 28 August 2018 13:59 (five years ago) link
Posted upthread:
LANDIS: What’s important to remember about that movie is, it was John and Danny’s intention to exploit their own celebrity of the moment, and focus a spotlight on these great American artists because rhythm and blues was in eclipse. To give you an idea, MCA Records, Universal Records, refused the soundtrack album.DEADLINE: Why?LANDIS: They said, who’s going to buy this music? And then, one of the great accomplishments of The Blues Brothers came when we recorded live John Lee Hooker on Maxwell Street, which is gone now. We had Pinetop Perkins, all these legendary people, recording John’s song “Boom Boom.” And when we ended up making a deal with Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun himself wouldn’t put John Lee Hooker on the album. He said, he’s too old, and too black. It was very gratifying when the album went platinum.
LANDIS: They said, who’s going to buy this music? And then, one of the great accomplishments of The Blues Brothers came when we recorded live John Lee Hooker on Maxwell Street, which is gone now. We had Pinetop Perkins, all these legendary people, recording John’s song “Boom Boom.” And when we ended up making a deal with Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun himself wouldn’t put John Lee Hooker on the album. He said, he’s too old, and too black. It was very gratifying when the album went platinum.
I pulled a bunch of my parent's vinyl from storage last week, and among the titles was Briefcase... Spun it earlier this evening, and enjoyed it a bit. Aside from a couple obvious numbers, they dug fairly deep for songs, made sure you knew who did most of 'em to begin with, give the band room to move, and emphasize the humor in Blues/Soul that gets too often forgotten by revivalists (although they do go overboard--some serious cocaine thought went into doing "Groove Me" in comedy Jamaican).
― Ubering With The King (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 31 August 2018 04:42 (five years ago) link
watched this movie with the kids last night and maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at how much they loved it. In a weird way, it's a perfect kids' movie, as long as you don't mind the swearing - the set-up is bare-bones simple, there's no extended dialogue or plot mechanics to decipher, tons of WB-cartoon style physical comedy, a great musical number every 5 minutes or so.
― Οὖτις, Monday, 8 October 2018 16:34 (five years ago) link
No thank you, ma'am. We may be suckin' back a few beers later on. We'll be here all night. You see, we're the band!
― omar little, Monday, 8 October 2018 16:46 (five years ago) link
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0008/3453/5487/products/8488566437676557808_GRATEFUL_DEAD_NEW_YEARS_2048x.jpg?v=1537901528
― earlnash, Monday, 8 October 2018 17:49 (five years ago) link
I haven't seen this since I watched it many times as a kid, and my only memories are the country bar scene, Aretha singing "Think," and the car chase/crash, which was my favorite part of the whole thing.
― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, 8 October 2018 22:57 (five years ago) link