Blues Brothers: Made in America

Blues Brothers: Made in America

1980

Atlantic Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Soul Finger/Funky Broadway  2. Who's Making Love  3. Do You Love Me/Mother Popcorn (You Got to Have a Mother for Me)   4. Guilty  5. Perry Mason Theme  6. Riot in Cell Block No. 9.   7. Green Onions  8. I Ain't Got You  9. From the Bottom  10. Going Back to Miami


Another fun live performance from the Blues Brothers...This one wasn't quite the runaway hit their previous albums and film (released earlier the same year) had been...

Listening to this back to back with "Briefcase Full of Blues" there's a few things that stand out that were probably seen as detrimental...Despite kicking off with the high-voltage "Who's Making Love." this album has a slightly slower overall tempo...John Belushi is also noticeably silent...Which is surprising, because he previously acted as the historian, letting us know where all their songs came from, but here, he really doesn't say anything at all...This gives Dan Aykroyrd to completely steal the show with his endlessly. entertaining monlogues...

There's an interesting interconnecting suite of songs that comprise most of side one, where "Joilet" Jake/Belushi sings a surprisingly moving version of  Randy Newman's "Guilty" (whose lyrics concerning cocaine and booze carry extra weight in light of Belushi's untimely demise a couple of years later...),  which ends in Elwood/Aykroyd proclaiming him guilty, which leads to a cover of the theme song from Perry Mason, who apparently loses the case, because the next track is "Riot in Cell Block No. 9."

 

 Side two isn't quite as action-packed as side one, but it does  kick off with a version of "Green Onions" during which Elwood gives a speech where he predicts that one day Booker T & the MG's will be viewed as the American version of classical music...And he's probably not far off...

"Made in America" ended up being the end of "Joilet" Jake, and I like to pretend all the other stuff after this never happened...



No Blue Brothers 2000...

No Jim Belushi...

Just one last, sweaty, coked-out performance on vinyl by John...So here's "Who's Making Love" by the Blues Brothers...Enjoy...