We'll Be Here For the Rest of Our Lives (27 page)

When John went off to do
Animal House
in Eugene, Oregon, he met Curtis Salgado, a great harmonica player and blues singer who was the vocalist for Robert Cray’s brilliant band. Curtis befriended John and became his next major blues mentor. They spent weeks together digging deep into the treasure chest of twelve-bar beauties.

Back in New York, John and I began discussing the personnel of the band. Steve Jordan, the
SNL
drummer, was an easy choice. Belushi and I both loved him. The big decision was the lead guitarist. If John was to be Mick, he needed a Keith. Belushi needed a killer guitarist to punctuate his vocals. Through John’s rock-and-roll connections he learned about Mike Landau, a brilliant young musician. When we jammed with him, I was impressed but felt we needed someone absolutely drenched in the blues.

“Oh man,” said John, “let’s hire him. We need someone now.”

“I’m hip, John,” I said. “Mike’s great, but I just don’t think we can compromise when it comes to an authentic balls-out blues guitarist.”

John thought long and hard. “Okay,” he said, “we gotta go see Doc.”

Doc was Doc Pomus, the ultimate blues guru. Once a blues singer himself, Doc was one of the great writers of blues and rhythm-and-blues and the reigning authority on all things blue. We caught up with Doc at Kenny’s Castaways, a downtown club where the blues cats crawled. When we explained the situation, Doc had two words for us: “Matt Murphy.”

I didn’t know Murphy, but when the pope gives his blessing, you gotta eat the cracker.

“So Doc,” I asked, “he’s the real deal?”

“Real as rain.”

We hired him on the spot. And Doc was right. Matt wailed. “Now we need another guitarist,” I told John. “A rhythm guitarist.”

That’s when Tom Malone, who had come aboard as trombonist/baritone saxist, mentioned that Steve Cropper, the fabulous guitarist of Stax fame—the guy who had backed Otis Redding and cowritten “Midnight Hour”—was available. What’s more, Duck Dunn was part of the package. Duck was the bassist from that same Stax era and, along with Cropper, a member of Booker T. and the MG’s. With Steve on guitar and Duck on bass, I knew we’d be grooving like mothers.

“We gotta get these guys,” I told Belushi.

Belushi hadn’t heard of them. I quickly filled him in on their pedigrees. Danny, who was a Stax fan, backed me up.

“This is a big break for us,” he told John.

John concurred, and once we rounded out the horns with Lou Marini and Tom Scott on saxes and Alan Rubin on trumpet, we were set.

Atlantic Records had offered us the deal. The first record was to be culled from a nine-night stand we were set to play,
opening for Steve Martin, then at the top of his stand-up game, at the Universal Amphitheater in L.A.

The next step was picking tunes: Danny, John, and I spent a week at John’s house on Morton Street in the Village. Our goal was to listen to blues records and find songs that would work for us. But that didn’t quite happen.
Animal House
had just opened, and John was getting calls and kudos from everywhere. This was, in fact, the week that John became a superstar. He couldn’t be contained.

“We gotta stay here and listen to music,” said Danny, doing his best to keep his pal focused.

“The Allman Brothers are playing Central Park,” said John. “Let’s go.”

And with that, he was gone. Ultimately, though, we got Belushi’s attention long enough for all of us to select killer material like “Hey, Bartender,” “Shotgun Blues,” and “Flip, Flop and Fly.”

Then it was rehearsal time.

From the first second we hit the first groove, we felt the power. The combination of these musicians from disparate backgrounds worked in a way none of us had anticipated. We were stoked.

“The songs are good,” said Steve Cropper, perhaps the greatest rhythm guitar in the history of rhythm, “but shouldn’t we do more than old blues?”

“Yeah,” said Duck Dunn. “Don’t we want some hits?”

“What would you suggest?” I asked.

“Some straight-up soul,” said Cropper.

“‘Soul Man’ would work great,” they both chimed.

“Soul Man” was the hit song that Isaac Hayes and David Porter had written for Sam and Dave. I agreed that it would be a perfect cover for the Blues Brothers. Steve and Duck, who had played on the original, taught Belushi how to sing it.

Next thing we knew we were winging our way to L.A. for the live recording gig. After our dress rehearsal, John’s manager, the venerable Bernie Brillstein, approached me.

“Look, Paul,” he said, “I hate to tell a client what to do with his act and I’d be the last one to say anything to John, but that intro number is all wrong.”

The opening number was a blues shuffle.

“What do you suggest?” I asked, somewhat defensively.

“Something that won’t put the audience to sleep.”

As a result of the intervention of Bernie, a non-musician if there ever was one, we came up with a killer opening number: a heart-stopping lightning-fast “Can’t Turn You Loose” while, in the wings, Danny made his dramatic announcement:

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Universal Amphitheater. Well, here it is the late 1970s going on 1985. You know, so much of the music we hear today is preprogrammed electronic disco. We never get a chance to hear master bluesmen practicing their craft anymore. By the year 2006 the music known as the blues will exist only in the classical records department of your local public library. So tonight, ladies and gentlemen, while we still can, let us welcome from Rock Island, Illinois, the blues band of Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues—the Blues Brothers!”

Then here come Danny and John. John does a couple of cartwheels before taking a key out of his pocket and unlocking the handcuffs linking Danny’s wrist to a briefcase. Inside are
Danny’s harmonicas. And from there, we’re off and running. The crowd goes crazy. As Steve Martin’s opening act, we almost outdo Steve. We’re a bona fide sensation. Even the sainted Cathy Vasapoli, who has come to L.A. to hear us, is impressed.

“I love Linda Ronstadt and country music best,” she says, “but you might really have something here, Paul.”

The week is a blur of press conferences and interviews. Because of the heat from
Animal House
, Belushi has rocketed to outer space. His movie is a smash; his band is a smash. Danny is thrilled for his best friend. I’m thrilled. Brillstein is talking about a Blues Brothers movie deal. The Blues Brothers’ album comes out. It’s called
Briefcase Full of Blues
because Belushi, hearing my Elton John impression on the National Lampoon
Goodbye Pop
album, thinks I was singing “You got an English tailored suit and a briefcase full of blues” when, in fact, I was singing “briefcase full of
loot.”
No matter, on the strength of the hit single “Soul Man”—thank you, Steve Cropper; thank you, Duck Dunn—the album goes multi-platinum and starts making lots of loot. Any way you look at it, what once began as a comedy routine in bee costumes has turned into a show-biz phenomenon.

Before I continue the Blues Brothers saga, a quick word about the ethnomusicology of the matter. Blues purists started complaining we weren’t playing pure blues. Cultural critics started carping on us as white boys ripping off black sounds. Some said Aykroyd and Belushi were inauthentic in their roles as bluesmen. Well, here was my attitude:

We were a tribute band. We played the music with unrestrained joy and sincerity. We loved the music. John wasn’t a great singer—and he knew it. John was a good singer. Danny was a good harp player. They revered blues and R&B and, most
importantly, through their comic genius, helped keep this stuff alive. The fact that, among others, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown were only too happy to appear in the Blues Brothers movie testifies to the musical value of the project. Referring to Danny and John, Ray himself told me, “Those are some funny motherfuckers, and they’re helping cats like me get work. God bless ’em.” Amen, Brother Ray.

Between my work on
SNL
and as musical director of the Blues Brothers, I was flying high—only to be shot down in a way that gave me, usually the happiest of piano players, a bad case of the blues.

I loved Belushi and wanted to help him.

I loved Gilda and wanted to help her.

I had a divided soul.

The Blues Brothers was about to be turned into a movie. In between creating
SNL
skits, Danny was writing a movie for Jake and Elwood. Elwood was named in honor of the man Danny and I considered the most boring personality ever to appear on Canadian television, Elwood Glover. Danny, knee deep in creating a Blues Brothers mythology, once came out of his office to ask a question.

“What’s the most dramatic Catholic imagery imaginable?” he asked.

“The stigmata,” I said.

Thus Sister Mother Stigmata became the nun in the film.

As the script started shaping up, it became clear that the band would play an important part. Reassembling the band would, in fact, provide the spine of the story. Danny wrote a
scene for me where, appropriately enough, I was playing piano in a lounge in Chicago. The scene would climax with me, Danny, and John performing the Buckinghams’ “Kind of a Drag.” I looked forward to being in a big Hollywood movie.

Then, on the heels of the success of the Blues Brothers record, Gilda got her own record deal. She approached me to write songs with her and coproduce the album with Bob Tischler. Bob was producer of the
National Lampoon Radio Hour
. He and I had also worked on the live Blues Brothers record.

Figuring I could successfully shuffle among
SNL
, the Blues Brothers film, and Gilda, I agreed. I certainly had the energy. Plus, I’d known Gilda since our
Godspell
days and considered her the greatest female comic since Lucy. Even more important, she was a dear, dear friend.

The Gilda project began. Michael O’Donoghue wrote the hysterical “Let’s Talk Dirty to the Animals.” Gilda and I wrote, among others, “I Love to be Unhappy” and “Honey, Touch Me with My Clothes On,” a look back at those days when extended foreplay was still the number-one indoor sport.

Meanwhile, when Belushi heard about the Gilda record, he pulled me and Tischler aside, whispering, “Don’t do it. Just rest up for the movie. You guys are going to be coproducing the sound track of the film, and Gilda’s going to be a distraction.”

No doubt, John loved Gilda and Gilda loved John, but intense competition exists even among the most loving of comics. For all his sweet-hearted ways, Belushi was a killer competitor.

“Sorry, John,” I said. “I gotta help Gilda. But I’ll be there for you. Count on it.”

What I didn’t count on were the obstacles facing me on
Gilda’s record. We cut it live in a studio with an audience. It was great, but needed heavy postproduction work, especially the music. Yet the more we worked on it, the worse it got. Meanwhile, Lorne Michaels, who was exec producing, wanted to hear it. The record wasn’t ready, but nonetheless I had to fly to Lorne’s house in Amagansett, Long Island. Gilda was there, and she and Lorne immediately heard that the album wasn’t there yet. But I was out of time. I had to be in Chicago three days later to start working with Belushi and Danny on the film.

I was caught in between Gilda and Belushi.

Gilda smiled at me with those sweet eyes of hers. “Come on, Paul,” she said. “I really need you on this.”

I thought back to the band. It was a blast. The band was the bomb. But the experience had not been entirely positive. While John loved to heap praise on Duck and Steve and Matt, he ignored me, which was tough on my ego. Often he “forgot” to introduce me to the audience, and that was even tougher. He seldom used my title, “Musical Director.” That was the toughest. Even though he gave me that job, he didn’t think the audience needed to know that a rock band had a musical director. After all, the Stones didn’t have a musical director; neither did Rod Stewart.

Meanwhile, Gilda had been nothing but wonderful to me throughout our long and warm friendship.

“Okay,” I told her and Lorne, “I’ll do it.”

“Great,” said Lorne. “I’ll call Bernie and tell him.”

Bernie Brillstein managed not only Gilda and Lorne, but John as well.

As soon as I got back to the city, I called my lawyer.

“I just pulled out of the Blues Brothers movie,” I told him.

“You can’t, Paul,” he said. “I just did the deal.”

“Well, undo it. I can’t leave Gilda with a half-completed record. I gotta help her out.”

“Why not do both? You go to Chicago for a week while Bob Tischler works with Gilda. Then the week after, you come back and work with Gilda while Bob goes to Chicago.”

“Think that will work?” I asked.

“I know it will.”

“Okay,” I said. “Call Bernie.”

Five minutes later, my lawyer was back on the phone. “Bernie said it’s too late. You’ve already been replaced. Belushi told Bernie, ‘Paul is no longer a Blues Brother. He’ll never be a Blues Brother again.’”

The Blues Brothers went on and did the movie without me. I was crushed. The band I loved belonged to somebody else.