Tune In, Turn On
By Doug Deutsch
It’s well known that late actor/“Saturday Night Live” star John Belushi was a big music fan; he was responsible for bringing notorious San Francisco punk group Fear to perform on SNL in 1981, still considered one of punk’s iconic TV moments. Less known is that Belushi enlisted the aid of vocalist extraordinaire Curtis Salgado to learn how to sing the blues.
“In 1977, John Belushi was in Eugene filming ‘Animal House’. During a downtime in production, Belushi caught our band, The Nighthawks (I was the front man at the time), and after our performance, I was introduced to him by a member of the audience,” said Salgado in a recent email interview. “I had no idea who he was because musicians work on Saturday night. I had never watched ‘Saturday Night Live’. I never even heard of it.
“John greeted me, and we shook hands,” recalls Salgado, who will perform in the Somers Point Concerts on the Beach series (Bay and New Jersey avenues) 7 p.m. Friday, June 16, in a free show. “He (Belushi) said, ‘You remind me of a friend of mine, and he plays harmonica, too – his name is Dan Akroyd.’ I thought, ‘Who cares: every hippie in town plays harmonica’.
“We ended up becoming friends,” recalls Salgado. “He called me up a few days after we met and asked me to come over and have dinner with him and his wife Judy. And to bring my records.
“Once I started sharing the recordings of the blues masters from my collection and sharing some of the history of blues and R&B, what and why these musicians were/are so important, well, he (Belushi) soaked up the music like a sponge, and used this to portray ‘Joliet’ Jake in ‘The Blues Brothers’ – first as a skit on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ then a best-selling record album (which was dedicated to me), and finally in the movie. Cab Calloway’s character was named Curtis – which was a very gracious and cool thing to do. Thanks to John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd.”
Salgado, 69, has also enjoyed a stellar recording career, winning Soul Blues Male Artist of the Year in 2022 and again in 2023 from the prestigious Blues Music Awards.
“Validation is a wonderful thing for the human spirit; everybody should be validated for a job well done or jobs that are hard to do and worthy of praise,” he said. Salgado’s most recent recording, “Damage Control” (Alligator), dropped in 2021.
Salgado is no stranger to the Jersey Shore.
“I’ve played Somers Point many times. It’s one of my favorite gigs in my career. I made some wonderful friends, like my lifelong friends, Carmen and Nancy Marotta. I just love it, and there’s so much history as well. Last year I played for the first time on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, and we had ourselves a ball. They got it all going on this year. They’re putting on Louisiana and New Orleans performance artists. How hip is that?”
News ‘n’ Notes: Dropkick Murphys killed it during Session No.1 at the two-day Atlantic City Beer and Music Festival last weekend. Jon Henderson and staff are to be commended for a job well done…catch AC’s First Lady of R&B/Soul, Angela Burton and Passion on June 10 (4 p.m.) on the Boardwalk at Chicken Bone Beach, part of the North to Shore Festival…Hear Molly Ringworm’s tight new single, “Down/Out” (Release date June 13, Kidokoro Records) when they perform at Anchor Rock Club June 9 with Miss Cantaloupe, also part of N2Shore.
Doug is the owner/operator of Doug Deutsch Publicity Services, which since 1995 has been servicing nationally touring acts, and working record release campaigns for clients. Doug also hàs experience writing for the one time shore-based weekly publication, Whoot! He also was a team member with Chip Braymes Advertising. Doug loves bicycling and aspires to bring the Blues to Atlantic City. He can be reached at ShoreLocalDoug@gmail.com and www.facebook.com/dougdeutschpublicity.
