Believe it or not, the 80s suit-and-tie wearing, bluesmobile driving icons may be bringing their Stax Records and South-side Chicago Blues sound to the small screen as a television series.
According to Variety, a pilot has already been penned by the widow of the late John Belushi (Jake Blues), along with former SNL writers and Wayne Catania, which avid followers of the Blues Brothers might recognize as the man who often plays the Akroyd/Belushi Estate-sanctioned “Jake Blues” character.
In the script, the brothers are finally out of jail and looking for Elwood’s real father. If picked up by a network, each episode will feature a different musical number.
“I think these are great American characters,” Judy Belushi told Variety. “We want to keep them alive. We chose to introduce them as new characters but do it in an way that they have some history, have some life behind them.”
The Blues Brothers made their debut appearance on SNL in 1978. In 1980, the big screen Blues Brothers movie prominently featured a number of blues greats making cameos, including Donald “Duck” Dunn, Steve Cropper, both members of the former Stax Record’s house band Booker T and the MGs, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and many more.
After Belushi’s death in 1982, Akroyd continued to invest energy and money into the blues, helping to create and investing in the House of Blues, and hosting the long-running House of Blues Radio Hour as his Elwood Blues character. HOB Radio is syndicated across the world and features hours of excellent contemporary and classic blues music every week.
While the blues community is sometimes divided on their opinion of the Blues Brothers, the duo has always been quick to credit and even include their blues influences in their alter-ego’s worlds, and the House of Blues Radio Hour brings a great deal of talented blues acts to hundreds of thousands of households every week. If the show stays true to it’s former self, it could mean opportunities to bring more blues to a wider (and younger) audience. The future will tell.
