Bøger af Daniel de Vise

The story of the epic friendship between John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the golden era of improv, and the making of a comedic film classic that helped shape our popular culture

THE BLUES BROTHERS is a story of friendship and film, race and revival, rhythm and blues. The 1980 movie stands as a landmark of American cinema and popular culture: A glorious meeting of the nation's white and black musical traditions, a moment of rebirth for the legends of African-American music, and the crowning achievement of three iconic talents in television and cinema, comedic actors John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd and director John Landis. The Blues Brothers marked a paradigm shift in the comedy and musical genres of cinema, a passing of the torch to a young and restless generation of writers and performers raised on television, and the arrival of Chicago as a cinematic setting. Dismissed by critics and shunned by theater owners upon its release, The Blues Brothers matured into a cinema classic. One of cinema's great comedies, The Blues Brothers also offered a groundbreaking vision for a modern, urban musical. The Blues Brothers endures, too, as a symbol of Hollywood excess, the heady, coke-fuelled peak of a doomed artistic partnership. THE BLUES BROTHERS chronicles the making of an iconic American film, and how the movie uses comedy to convey an important message about music, race and the American experience. Among other things, the book will reveal the true purpose of the mission that fueled the Blues Brothers enterprise: to revive the careers of America's greatest icons of rhythm and blues. This transcendent quest sets The Blues Brothers apart from the other fine comedy films of its era, securing a place for Aykroyd, Belushi and Landis in the turbulent history of race in America-in this case, as white Americans who leveraged their fame to raise the currency of great Black American musicians.

"The story of the epic friendship between John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the golden era of improv, and the making of a comedic film classic that helped shape our popular culture. "They're not going to catch us," Dan Aykroyd, as Elwood Blues, tells his brother Jake, played by John Belushi. "We're on a mission from God." So opens the musical action comedy The Blues Brothers, which hit theaters on June 20, 1980. Their scripted mission was to save a local Chicago orphanage. But Aykroyd, who conceived and wrote much of the film, had a greater mission: to honor the then-seemingly forgotten tradition of rhythm and blues, some of whose greatest artists-Aretha Franklin, James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles-made the film as unforgettable as its wild car chases. Much delayed and vastly over budget, beset by mercurial and oft drugged-out stars, The Blues Brothers opened to outraged reviews. However, in the 44 years since, it has been acknowledged a classic: it has been inducted into the National Film Registry for its cultural significance, even declared a "Catholic classic" by the Church itself, and re-aired thousands of times on television to huge worldwide audiences. It is, undeniably, one of the most significant films of the 20th century. The story behind any classic is rich; the saga behind The Blues Brothers, as Daniel de Visâe reveals, is epic, encompassing the colorful childhoods of Belushi and Aykroyd; the comedic revolution sparked by Harvard's Lampoon and Chicago's Second City; the birth and anecdote-rich, drug-filled early years of Saturday Night Live, where the Blues Brothers were born as an act amidst turmoil and rivalry; and, of course, the indelible behind-the-scenes narrative of how the film was made, scene by memorable scene. Based on original research and dozens of interviews probing the memories of principals from director John Landis and producer Bob Weiss to Aykroyd himself, The Blues Brothers illuminates an American masterpiece while vividly portraying the creative geniuses behind modern comeedy"--

The first full and authoritative biography of an American--indeed a world-wide--musical and cultural legend. "No one worked harder than B.B. No one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues."--President Barack Obama. "He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced."--Eric Clapton. Riley "Blues Boy" King (1925-2015) was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a local minister's guitar and by the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, encouraged by his cousin, the established blues man Bukka White, B.B. taught his guitar to sing in the unique solo style that, along with his relentless work ethic and humanity, became his trademark. In turn, generations of artists claimed him as inspiration, from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana and the Edge. King of the Blues presents the vibrant life and times of a trailblazing giant. Witness to dark prejudice and lynching in his youth, B.B. performed incessantly (some 15,000 concerts in 90 countries over nearly 60 years)--in some real way his means of escaping his past. Several of his concerts, including his landmark gig at Chicago's Cook County Jail, endure in legend to this day. His career roller-coasted between adulation and relegation, but he always rose back up. At the same time, his story reveals the many ways record companies took advantage of artists, especially those of color. Daniel de Viés has interviewed almost every surviving member of B.B. King's inner circle--family, band members, retainers, managers, and more--and their voices and memories enrich and enliven the life of this Mississippi blues titan, whom his contemporary Bobby "Blue" Bland simply called "the man."

The first full and authoritative biography of an American-indeed a world-wide-musical and cultural legend

Fame. Fall. Redemption. The dramatic life story of America's greatest cyclist, three-time winner of the Tour de France

"When Andy Griffith went to Hollywood in 1960 to film a TV pilot about a small-town sheriff, his friend Don Knotts called to ask if his sheriff could use a deputy. Together, Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife elevated The Andy Griffith Show from a folksy sitcom into a timeless study of human friendship. The program was fiction, but the friendship was powerful and real."--Jacket.