Coda.fm

The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack Recording

by The Blues Brothers

• Buy it at Amazon.com

Inspired by the lovable Saturday Night Live white-boy blues schtick of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, director John Landis seemingly threw every harebrained stunt he could imagine--and millions of dollars in production costs and wrecked autos--onto the screen. The resulting film could have been mistaken for a bad case of Hunter S. Thompson's D.T.'s, but Landis never shortchanged the music: Cab Calloway, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Ray Charles all get their moment in the spotlight. Miraculously, the chic-shabby Blues Brothers, anchored by the Stax rhythm section of Cropper and Dunn, hold their own against the legends, perhaps by the sheer joy and love they have for the music. --Jerry McCulley