HIGHLAND – The Blues Brothers, featuring Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi, will take the stage at the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino on Thursday.
Belushi said he enjoys the performances. “It doesn’t matter what mental state you’re in,” Belushi said.
“Once the downbeat happens, we are transformed into joy boys. We have a ball up there. It just carries through to the audience. By the end of the night everybody is smiling and happy.”
For him, each show is like a “first-time gig,” he said.
“My musicians said to me one time, `Jim, the way you jump around and sing out there and have fun it brings us back to why we started in the first place.”‘
The Blues Brothers began as a comedy sketch on TV’s “Saturday Night Live,” created by original cast members Aykroyd and the late John Belushi.
They named their characters Elwood and Jake.
Jim Belushi, John’s younger brother and a TV and movie star in his own right, says he does not play the role of Jake in the current “Blue Brothers” shows, but rather Jake’s brother Zee.
“I’m the long-lost brother Zee. Elwood searched me out and begged me. I was running an Albanian feudal castle and he searched me out.”
Belushi said in October he obtained Albanian citizenship and currently is restoring an Albanian house and property once owned by his father.
Aykroyd and John Belushi starred in the 1980 movie hit “The Blues Brothers,” but fans shouldn’t expect a remake.