Here we enter Blue Brothers territory. John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd first portrayed Jake and Elwood Blues on SaturdayNightLive before filming the movie (which also happens to share the basic plot of most Muppets movies), although “the Good Ol’ Blues Brothers Boys Band” plays a lot more actual blues music in BlueBrothers2000 (and a lot more played around them).
Bit of housekeeping this edition…As of this one Blogger isn’t just letting me watch the videos in the post. Not sure if it’s just me. But they still populate once I go to YouTube itself to play them.
I’m including the Belushi version because I love that it exists, it’s Belushi doing a straight version of Cocker, from the first season of SaturdayNightLive, which for those who’ve never seen it, it’s amazing how little time the original cast really had; it was originally much more a spotlight for the celebrity host. Belushi, and Chevy Chase’s Weekend Update, was pretty much the exception. That’s exactly why things played out the way they did. Belushi and Chase were the breakout stars for a reason. But to be fair, they had a little help from their friends. So to speak…
The song that launched Elvis’s career, “That’s All Right” was originally composed by Arthur Crudup on the bones of earlier blues music, and wasn’t particularly successful for his own career (he actually did another song that was basically the same thing just to get a little more mileage out of it).
It’s become somewhat popular in recent years to claim Elvis simply ripped off black performers, but the counterargument is that his willingness to sing their songs made it widely acceptable to appreciate them. Either way, great music was happening.
