Dec. 29: Soul music

The surgeon general warns you that this note will probably mention Prince. Several times. I'm sorry, but if you give me "soul music" as a title, where do you think the muse is going to take me? That's right. Straight into Erotic City.

But actually, the muse wants to talk about the Blues Brothers first. Does anyone even remember them anymore? The Blues Brothers is the best movie ever to be inspired by characters from Saturday Night Live (yes, it even beats Wayne's World.) Dan Aykroyd and the late John Belushi play a couple of blues musicians who "get the old band together" so they can mount a charity concert that will enable them to pay the taxes for the Catholic orphanage where they were raised.  Later, the Vatican newspaper "L'Osservatore Romano" called the film "a Catholic classic" and even recommended it as suitable viewing for Catholics. I dunno... I seem to recall a bit of profanity, some blasphemy, and a lot of reckless driving, but I'll let it go at that.

Aykroyd and Belushi weren't exactly the most gifted vocalists out there - what they lacked in raw talent they made up for with charisma - but holy cow was that movie ever stuffed with bona fide soul talent. I'm talking Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and a show-stopping performance of Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway. The Blues Brothers is a triumph of feel good simple storytelling and high energy music mania.

-

The same applies to Purple Rain. The story is simple: a struggling musician wants to hang on to one of the three spots reserved for house bands at the Fifth Avenue Club. What's stopping him from doing so? Not booze or drugs or even women? It's his own need to experiment and the fear of winding up a failure like his father. In the end, he overcomes it all and we get some amazing music to boot.

Let's go crazy everyone.



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