Salgado recalls good times with ‘Blues Brothers’
This year marks the 45th anniversary of “The Blues Brothers,” a movie in which longtime Eugene resident Curtis Salgado played a significant role behind the scenes.
The 1972 Willamette High grad shared some old stories about old Saturday Night Live pals John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd after the 6th annual Springfield Mayor’s Revue concert at the Wildish Community Theater.
“Let me tell you about one of the first times (Belushi and I) met here in Eugene,” Salgado said after the October show. “He invited me to come to his place and bring my records, and he was watching ‘Gunsmoke.’ He was looking at all of the small character actors and he would mimic all of them – ‘Mail call for Mr. Dillon, mail call for Mr. Dillon.’ – He even did Miss Kitty.
“He mimics every person on television – that’s how actors become actors. I knew since I did acting in high school that he was riffing. He was practicing his craft. He was as serious as a heart attack. Those guys are all like that.”
About Aykroyd, he said: “Dan Aykroyd wrote ‘Ghostbusters,’ he wrote ‘Neighbors,’ and he wrote ‘Spies Like Us,’ and he’s into the supernatural. These guys are not just a bunch of goofy guys. They’re brilliant people.”
Salgado, 70, has been based out of Portland for most of his adult life. The 11 Blues Music Awards winner said it’s always great to return to his old stomping grounds.
Island Park hosts the ‘perfect summer event’
Jenny Don’t and the Spurs made quite an impression on the Island Park crowd after wrapping up the 2024 Concert in the Park series. The venue made quite an impression on them, too.
“We’ve played outdoor events in Willamina, Monmouth, Silverton, Sellwood, which is next to Portland – every summer we try to do that – but this is by far my favorite one – because this is the only one that’s on the (Willamette) river,” Jenny said. “The fact that you can turn around and watch the sun setting over the river is so awesome. It’s the epitome of summertime. Plus, the staff here has been great to us. … And they have beer. They don’t all have beer.
“It’s the perfect summer event. If you’re a band looking for something to do that’s outside of your regular venues, this is the perfect place to do it.”
Jenny Don’t and the Spurs touch on a lot of genres, but they are often called a Cowpunk band
“I like that style, they play punk rock, but they dress like cowboys,” Jenny said. “They have this attitude, these little touches, where it’s like, OK, that’s cool.”
Jenny Don’t g ot her stage name because she’s always willing to push the limits.
“I was ornery growing up. People were always saying, ‘Jenny, don’t!’ Parents, teachers, bus drivers – any authoritative figure was usually getting sick of me,” she said.
Have a song request? Lev can play it
There’s no other one-man band like Eli Lev.
At every show he takes requests. It can be any style of music … and then he plays it.
“Genres are just classifications, and music is vibrations and creativity, so I try to follow that and if it leads me outside of those genres and flirting with different sounds, then so be it,” Lev said after last summer’s show at the Axe and Fiddle. “But I just want to express what’s inside of me, and I think my music speaks to that.”
He has a massive worldwide online community that follows his music called the Levitators who inspire him to create new songs and embrace different cultures. “Being an independent musician has its ups and downs, but one of the ups is I can create music whenever I want, and I can release it whenever I want,” Lev said.
Those new rhythms and new pulses keep him on his toes.
“Maybe it’s a beat, maybe it’s a sound, maybe it’s a chord, maybe it’s a theme, maybe it’s a lyric, but piecing all of those together is kind of like an influence,” he said.
A vote of confidence for Eugene Symphony
The people of Cottage Grove have spoken. They don’t want to pull the plug on the annual Eugene Symphony concert.
“Just like every other city in America, it’s been a pretty tight budget year,” Cottage Grove Mayor Candace Solesbee said after the event, part of the Chamber of Commerce Concert in the Park series. “We had a lot of unexpected expenses, so we had to weigh everything out to see if we could afford it.
“From now on, we’re going to try to get ahead of the game and start going after sponsors early on. Then the burden won’t be on the taxpayers, so we can always offer some culture back to Cottage Grove by offering this event because this is wonderful.”
Former conductor Daniel Cho, who had left Eugene in 2023 to join the Alabama Symphony, thanked his lucky stars when he was offered a chance to return for the two annual outdoor shows.
“I love these shows,” Cho said. “I think everybody always looks forward to the park concerts.”
Bleachers were added for this event, and they filled up quickly for the show of the year in Cottage Grove.
One of the evening’s highlights was a violin solo by 16-year-old Andrew Lee, a junior at Sunset High School in Portland.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me,” Lee said after the concert. “To play with a professional orchestra as a high schooler – even as a high schooler you don’t get that many chances to perform – and to perform at such a high level, this is a life-changing experience.”
Lee, who joined the Portland Youth Philharmonic in 2021, took third place in the 2023 Oregon State Solo Contest and the 2023 ASTA Competition.
He’s also the co-founder of Euphonos Ensemble, which is devoted to improving communities through music.
“I have this nonprofit that I run with my friends,” Lee said of Euphonos Ensemble. “We go around and play at nursing homes to share the love of music and I usually play some of my short solos – one, to spread our love of music, and also to put myself out there. As high schoolers we don’t get many chances to perform as professional musicians, so I just feel like the more the better.”
Kelly blazes his own trail with innovative music
Brian Kelly writes a lot of cool songs. Like “Reggie Jackson,” the tune about getting a call from a debt collector who shared a name with the famous baseball player. Kelly, from the Bay area, couldn’t help thinking, “Who am I for him to call me and ask for money?”
Or “Fumer Tue,” as he reminisces about being 14, hanging out at the local AM/PM store, and having some 19-year-old guy buy cigarettes for him. “Sometimes I think back about that guy, and I just thought I should write a song about him,” Kelly said.
But the most remarkable thing is how he incorporates his graphic design skills into his music, a unique, mesmerizing ability to watch. He has a must-see video called “Monterrey,” which is a tribute to his sister Cari, who died of cancer at age 51 in 2020.
Kelly, who played on back-to-back nights at the PublicHouse in Springfield and the Axe and Fiddle in Cottage Grove, was a rock-and-roller until just before he moved to New York in 2001.
“I saw Damien Jurado play by himself in this small room, the Blue Room in Chico – just him and a guitar, by himself – and he really captivated this group of people,” Kelly said after performing at the PublicHouse. “I thought, ‘I wish I could do that.’ That inspired me to not rely on other people to play music. I started writing lyric-driven songs.
“I grew up liking Van Halen; I always wanted to be like Van Halen. I wanted to be a lead guitar player, but it’s so hard to keep bands together. Everything is so complicated, it would be nice to do it by myself.
“When I moved to New York, it was like a shift from being a virtuoso to being a really good player; it was more of a conceptual shift for me. The songwriting was more important than the quality of the playing. That was sort of a shift for me.
“A lot of the players I would see weren’t necessarily great players, but they had really interesting ideas.”
