The Blues Brothers
American blues and soul band
The Blues Brothers (known formally as "The Fabulous Blues Brothers Show Band and Revue") are an American blues and soul revue band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who met and began collaborating as original cast members of Saturday Night Live. The band was primarily a blues, rhythm and blues, and soul music band, with influences from other classic American genres such as jump blues, country music, jazz, and rock and roll.
The Blues Brothers Musical Revue consisted of lead vocalist "Joliet" Jake Blues (Belushi) and his brother, Elwood (Aykroyd), who played a harmonica that he carried onstage in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. The duo were usually dressed in matching black suits, black pencil ties, black trilby hats and sunglasses. The band itself was carefully constructed, and made up of experienced musicians of the time, including Steve "The Colonel" Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, "Blue" Lou Marini, Tom "Bones" Malone, and Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin.
The act debuted as musical guest on the April 22, 1978, episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by comedian Steve Martin. After recruiting a full band, the group opened for Martin during a residency at the Universal Amphitheatre in September 1978. Recordings from that performance were released on November 28 as a live album, Briefcase Full of Blues. The album rose to the top of the charts and was a platinum seller.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1344949. VIAF identifies the subject as 142038215. The Library of Congress control number is n80062615. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Blues Brothers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.