Actor and writer Dan Aykroyd found himself at the epicenter of popular culture in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. As part of the original, 1975 cast of Saturday Night Live alongside Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, and John Belushi (to name a few), Aykroyd became heavily associated with characters like Julia Child, “wild and crazy guy” Yortuk Festrunk, and Elwood Blues. The latter originated on SNL alongside John Belushi’s Jake Blues and the pair eventually took these characters to the big screen for the hit 1980 film, The Blues Brothers. Aykroyd later went on to star in many more hit films including Trading Places, the Ghostbusters franchise, and Driving Miss Daisy (for which he was nominated for an Oscar).
Aykroyd’s most recent project is Audible’s Blues Brothers: The Arc of Gratitude, which charts the beginning of his collaboration with Belushi, the formation of the band, and how the Blues Brothers continued after Belushi’s death in 1982. Aykroyd tells The Treatment about how he and Belushi wanted to celebrate the great soul music that had fallen out of fashion in the 1970s. He shares the lessons he’s learned about performance from his Blues Brothers bandmates. And he opens up about the parts of his past that he needed to process while working on the project.