Event Details Award-winning vocalist, instrumentalist and songwriter Curtis Salgado, the man NPR calls “an icon” with “a huge voice,” is revered worldwide for his ability to wring every ounce of soul out of every song he performs. Salgado is famed not only for his powerhouse live shows and eleven previous albums, but also for his passionate and insightful original songs. He has been nominated three times for the Blues Music Award for Song Of The Year, winning in 2018 for Walk A Mile In My Blues from The Beautiful Lowdown. In total, he has won eleven Blues Music Awards, including the B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year. DownBeat calls his songwriting skills “an impressive gift.” Billboard says Salgado’s music is “inspired and powerful.”

Tired of hanging around the house during the filming of “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” Belushi went to the Eugene Hotel lounge for some laughs. But once there, the comic actor became quiet as he was mesmerized by a dynamic 25-year-old Eugene blues singer-harmonica player named Curtis Salgado.

Salgado’s music invigorated Belushi, who not only liked it but saw in the makings of an off-beat comedy skit about a blues band for the “Saturday Night Live” television show. Belushi asked Salgado to teach him all he knew about the blues.

Since that chance meeting in October 1977, Belushi and another “Saturday Night Live: performer Dan Aykroyd, have created an act called The Blues Brothers. Propelled by television appearances and concerts with comedian Steve Martin, the act has become one of the nation’s hottest new attractions – with T-shirts, buttons, a record album, and plans for a motion picture.

Belushi gives all the credit to Salgado.

“Curtis really helped me out,” Belushi says over the phone from his New York City office. “I owe him a lot.” Belushi feels his debt to Salgado so deeply that he insisted that the young musician’s name be included in the recent cover articles on Belushi in Crawdaddy and Newsweek magazines, and he dedicated The Blues Brothers’ album, “Briefcase Full of Blues,” to him.

If the Blues Brothers catches on, Salgado will have been responsible for a significant item of pop culture.

Rafael Tranquilino Music Producer/Instrumentalist Funk-Rock-Blues-Jazz-Neo Soul - TRAFF MUSIC PRODUCTIONS

Awarded "2023 Best Electric Blues Guitar"