Watched Soul Man on DVD, first time seeing it in decades. allthegood had never seen it, just the SNL skits.
I saw scenes I remembered from before — especially the one where they perform behind chicken wire and rednecks throw beer bottles at the performers.
But I also “remember” a scene that never showed up! The Blues Brothers get booked at a Very Black venue where no white performers (or audience members) ever go. As with the redneck venue, they’re off to a rather iffy start with incredulous audience staring at them & no applause, but as with the redneck audience they win them over with good music.
So where am I remembering that from if it isn’t in the damn movie?
Could it have been a Blues Bros SNL skit I’m remembering? The sequel movie from 2000? Some completely unrelated movie?
Well, after the Blues Brothers play their opening number at the Palace Hotel Ballroom, the audience is stone cold silent, but then begins to warm up to them the more they play. But it was a pretty white crowd in that scene.
Where the confusion may come from is that the Blues Brothers covered the Sam and Dave song ‘Soul Man’, which got a decent amount of airplay at the time.
And Lou Reed covered “Soul Man” for the soundtrack of the unbelievably tasteless movie of that name, which probably was the low point of his career, “Metal Machine Music” notwithstanding.
The Blues Brothers: well received and loved movie about two (white) brothers, Jake and Elwood, who play blues music (and fight Illinois nazis) with a mixed race band. They get beer bottles thrown at them while playing in the redneck bar.
Soul Man: atrocious film about a white guy who masquerades as a “brother” to get into law school, using blackface. It’s about as bad as you can imagine, and it wasn’t any better when it was new 40 years ago.
Animal House: John Belushi film about asshole frat bothers included a scene in a bar with the scary ass black dudes™ who ask “can we dance with your dates?”
Blazing Saddles: non-Belushi film that asks the question “where the white wimmen at?”
