One of the unseen success stories surrounding the Blues Brothers is how their albums helped the original composers of the songs they covered. That was actually at their insistence.
Atlantic, the label that released the Blues Brothers’ 1978 debut album Briefcase Full of Blues, originally suggested that John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd contact legacy artists like Floyd Dixon, Steve Cropper, Isaac Hayes and Donnie Walsh from the Downchild Blues Band with an offer of 50 percent of the publishing royalties.
“John and I refused, which was pretty unusual at the time,” Aykroyd remembered recently. “We’ve had no share in any of the songwriting royalties on the eight records. We have a little for the mechanical royalties, the voice work, but that’s a pittance since Steve Jobs and Apple ratcheted down the value of music and it’s all digital. All the publishing royalties went to the original artists. We could have owned a part, but we did not grab a share of it. That’s not right.”
Those eight albums spanned a period through 1998’s Blues Brothers 2000, and included a pair of Top 15 projects. Artists like Dixon, who composed “Hey Bartender” from the chart-topping Briefcase Full of Blues, were suddenly receiving the largest royalty checks of their careers. That only added to the sense of old-school camaraderie that keeps Steve Cropper involved with the Blues Brothers even today.
Curtis Salgado, a soul-blues shouter who was a huge behind-the-scenes influence on the initial Blues Brothers film, ran into Floyd Dixon years later – and asked him about the windfall.
“I go ‘It’s none of my business, but how much did you get?’” Salgado added. “Floyd says, ‘$78,000, the most I ever got.’ I think, ‘Enough to buy a house!’ I asked, ‘What did you do with it?’ He looks into the sky. This was on the main stage at the Chicago Blues Festival. He says, ‘I put it all on the horses. I had a wonderful time, man.’ That’s a Blues Brother right there. That’s the real shit.”
Dan Aykroyd didn’t hear that Dixon story until much later. “I didn’t know that,” he said. “Did he get his royalties? I’m so pleased.”
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