Sunday, May 13, 2012

Four Strings and a Whole Lotta Funky Soul

Donald "Duck" Dunn, a bass player on the legendary Stax/Volt soul music label in the 1960s and the man who advocated a new, music-based biofuel process in The Blues Brothers, passed away Sunday morning after a pair of shows in Tokyo.

Dunn was a part of Booker T. and the MGs, who had some hits of their own and who backed up most of the Stax/Volt singers at one time or another during that label's prime years in the mid and late 1960s. In 1978, he first played behind "Joliet" Jake Blues (John Belushi) and his brother Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) in the "Blues Brothers" sketch on Saturday Night Live (Again, for younger readers, SNL was a late-night television show that featured comedy sketches, musical routines and wide-ranging satire. It is related to today's similarly-titled show in name only). That role would be continued in the 1980 movie. Some people suggest that in 1998, a "sequel" to The Blues Brothers, called Blues Brothers 2000, was filmed, but such a saying is utter blasphemy and beneath contempt.

Following his stint with the brothers, Dunn continued to perform regularly on albums and onstage until his passing.

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