Review of Blues Brothers, The: Best Of The Blues Brothers

Introduction

Music manufactured on television rarely has any pedigree. One only has to look at the current spate of talent shows to see the production lines of instant has-beens being churned out at the rate of several a year. One True Voice anyone? This is hardly a new phenomenon as it took the Monkees decades to achieve even a semblance of credibility. Yet in the seventies and eighties, one band spawned from the comedy loins of Saturday Night Live no less, achieved more than credibility, championing soulful music and style in an unforgettable way, becoming nothing less than icons that went on to star in their own cult movie. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi were the Blues Brothers.

The Best Of The Blues Brothers was a doc/mockumentary made in 1993 that looks back over the origin and the career of the Blues Brothers as related to Tom Davis by Dan Aykroyd and Elwood Blues. From their SNL debut to their third album, it looks at the sounds and the characters that shaped the band, as well as saving some time for those classic tunes.

Video

The picture on this disc is presented in the original 4:3 format. As for the image quality, you have to remember that the most recent footage is from the 1993 interview, with most of the retro footage from the late seventies and early eighties US television, as well as concert footage. It`s hardly going to challenge the boundaries of the DVD format. The image is soft and lacking in contrast, with a few video artefacts creeping in.

Audio

The sound is available in DD 5.1 or DD2.0 Stereo, but there is little to differentiate the two. The DD 5.1 is a little crisper, stronger and louder, to my ears at least, but the surrounds are pretty much redundant with this being a front focused affair. But given the image quality, the sound is certainly acceptable, though it may not set your system alight.

Features

The Amaray case comes slipped inside a 3D Focal-Pak ©2003 Pat Pending, which is a cardboard and cellophane contraption that contrived to give the package a 3D look to it. It`s also a bugger to open.

The menus are pretty nice, with Soul Man playing over the main screen.

The extras are largely text based, but do provide a nice background to the band. You get a History Of The Blues Brothers, a Discography, Biographies of the band Members as well as for Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Elwood`s speeches are recreated here as well as the sleeve notes for the first album. There`s also a Blues Brothers quiz, although one of the screens didn`t work on my machine. Finally there is a 12-picture gallery.

Conclusion

I`m not exactly a Blues Brothers fan here, so I`m not really in a position to comment critically on the music. I do know what I like though, and the tunes on this disc had my toes tapping. I was always amazed that an SNL creation sounded so credible, and this disc went a long way to filling in the gaps in my knowledge. For, while John Belushi was a fair vocalist and Dan Aykroyd is pretty good on the Harmonica, it`s the fact that the band had such a musical pedigree that gave The Blues Brothers their credibility. Also Howard Shore, the musical director of SNL who gave The Blues Brothers the green light, is the same Howard Shore who these days composes themes for obscure films like Lord Of The Rings.

The trouble with this disc is that it is short to say the least, just 60 minutes. It`s 60 minutes that also contains 14 tracks, although a couple are just snippets. They`re all easy on the ears, but I get the feeling that this disc will only cater for die hard fans of the band, who want to update their collection and replace that worn out VHS. This disc would have been a golden opportunity to include some additional footage, perhaps some more of the SNL appearances, but it`s just a spruced up re-presentation of the original documentary.

For a best of retrospective, the Blues Brother`s best-known tune is conspicuous by its absence, but that by no means denigrates the other tunes on this disc. Besides, if you are half the fan that would buy this disc, you already have the movie.