The thing that made the Blues Brothers so special, of course, was their total commitment to their personae and to their music.

Jake and Elwood may have been the brainchild of two comedians in their prime.  They may have been born of a Saturday Night Live sketch that saw John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd dressed up as bees.  And their film may have come as close as we’ll ever see to a Road Runner chase sequence rendered in live action. But they were no joke.  Neither parody nor tribute, the Blues Brothers succeeded as real musicians, with a real band behind them.  (In naming some of those band members – Steve Cropper, Paul Shaffer, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, North Texas alum “Blue” Lou Marini, the late great Alan “Mr. Fabulous” Rubin and Donald “Duck” Dunn – I’m only scratching the surface of their legend.)

So when I learned that the Overtime Theater was trying to recapture their magic, this was something I had to see and hear. Continue reading →