Thursday, June 25, 2015

Videos of Summer: Land of 1000 Dances (1988)

Two and a half years after Vince McMahon's crew had massacred "Land of 1000 Dances", Wilson Pickett, one of two artists closely associated with the song in the 60's (Cannibal & the Head Hunters was the other) revived it, with an assist from Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) and his band. "Land" is the closing track in the movie, "The Great Outdoors", starring Aykroyd & John Candy.

The video has movie footage mixed with conceptual pieces. You can tell that Aykroyd had gained quite a bit of weight, dating back to before the 1st "Ghostbusters" movie, since "Blues Brothers" came out in 1980. Maybe Elwood was trying to fill in for his late brother, Jake (John Belushi, who'd passed away some time earlier).

Judge for yourselves, kids.




This was the 3rd cover of "Land" to chart in the 80's. The J. Geils Band was first with a live version on their 1982 album, "Showtime".

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