If you're of my generation - the generation that, as grade-schoolers, used to stay up long after bedtime to watch the early years of Saturday Night Live - there may be two names you most associate with your early exposure to blues music: Jake and Elwood.
Yet if you, too, became a fan of John Belushi's and Dan Aykroyd's famed Blues Brothers act through the duo's SNL appearances, their 1978 album Briefcase Full of Blues, and their 1980 feature film, the one to thank for your youthful blues immersion shouldn't be Jake or Elwood (or John or Dan). It should be Curtis.
Described by Blues Revue magazine as "one of the most down-to-earth, soulful, honest singers ever," and a harmonica player who is "rollicking, funky, and electrifying," Curtis Salgado has been at the forefront of the blues scene for decades. Included among Salgado's considerable credits are his many years of professional partnership alongside five-time Grammy-winner Robert Cray, his headlining of blues festivals from San Francisco to Thailand, and his 2010 and 2013 Blues Music Awards for Soul Blues Male Artist of the Year - the latter of which Salgado received after successfully battling lung cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2012.
Check out the liner notes for Briefcase Full of Blues, though, and you'll see that Salgado is also the man that the album is dedicated to, making him the de facto reason many of us knew the lyrics to "Soul Man" before entering high school. (Also check out the name of Cab Calloway's character in 1980's The Blues Brothers movie. It's Curtis.)
"Belushi told me that Aykroyd was trying to get him into the blues, but he wasn't biting," says Salgado during our recent phone interview. "And then when he saw me, he got it."
