Blues Brothers

This is a fine CD of Blues Brothers material, featuring the original Blues Brothers Band and frontman Larry Thurston, performing at Montreux Jazz Festival on July 12, 1989. From the late '80s through the early 90's, the Blues Brothers Band was a popular touring act throughout Europe, with Mr. Thurston doing a fine job on lead vocals. None of the other 90's Blues Brothers frontmen (Dan Ackroyd, John Goodman, Jim Belushi) appear on this CD or in this Line-Up. Not exactly "essential", but a good performance of the tour band during this period of the band's history.

Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, "Blue Lou" Marini, and Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin were all members of the all-star band that backed John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in their Blues Brothers incarnation between 1978 and 1980. Here, they reorganized with a few more players, notably singer Larry "T" Thurston, as the Blues Brothers Band. The music (mostly new songs) was in the Blues Brothers' familiar up-tempo R&B style, Elwood Blues made a cameo appearance, and the playing was session-man-hot, but of course it just wasn't the same without Joliet Jake, who had gone to that great roadhouse in the sky ten years before.

Made in America is the third album by The Blues Brothers. The second live album by the band, it was released in December 1980 as a followup to their hit film released that year, The Blues Brothers. The album did not fare as well, commercially or critically as their previous two albums, 1978's Briefcase Full of Blues and The Blues Brothers: Music from the Soundtrack. Made in America peaked at No. 49 on the Billboard chart and the single, "Who's Making Love", just cracked the Top 40 at No. 39. It was the band's last album with lead singer "Joliet" Jake Blues (John Belushi, who died in 1982).

It isn't exactly difficult to scoff at the Blues Brothers – beginning your musical career as a sketch on Saturday Night Live is not the best way to develop artistic credibility, and while Elwood Blues wasn't too shabby a harp player, his brother, Joliet Jake, sang only marginally better than that guy who used to impersonate Joe Cocker on late-night television. But no one ever bought a Blues Brothers album expecting a life-changing musical experience – these guys were there to put on a show, and putting on a great show is just what they did. It helped that Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi obviously loved the music, and they knew how to put together a killer band (any fan with the vision to hire Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Steve Jordan, and Matt "Guitar" Murphy" to cover classic blues and R&B deserves credit for good taste, if nothing else)…