Behind the scenes in At an Illinois festival last weekend, two children of pop culture legends were discussing the setlist. “We’re going to do ‘The River,’ then ‘Good Morning Sun,’ and then ‘Bones’ at the end,” said Ben Taylor, the rugged-looking son of James Taylor and Carly Simon. Luke Pisano—whose mother was Judy Belushi Pisano, the writer and artist who was once married to John Belushi—nodded but cautioned, “That’s all the time we’re going to have. We’re going to have four songs max.”
The venue was the second Blues Brothers Con, a daylong festival celebrating all things fictional duo created by Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. The 4,800 people gathered at the old Joliet Jail in Joliet, Illinois, now a museum after a long run on display in the 1980s. the The Blues Brothers The movie, we were waiting to see Aykroyd and Belushi's brother Jim back in black suits and hats and grooving to classic blues, R&B, and soul songs.
But the songs on the discussed setlist were not written by a member of the Taylor or Simon clan or performed by the Blues Brothers. They were songs by Judy Belushi Pisano, who died last month of endometrial cancer at age 73. In addition to books and a documentary about her late husband, Pisano, who was never known as a musician, left behind a surprise. In the final stages of her illness, she recorded an album of wry, poignant and reflective tunes about her life, her battle with cancer and her relationship with her late first husband, whose work and image she long championed. And tonight at Joliet, the Blues Brothers Con crowd will be able to hear them in public for the first time.
“It’s the only album I can think of recently that manages to be as deep and fun in every song,” says Ben Taylor, who produced the album that contains these recordings. “With songs that deal with such deep topics, even if someone is as good at condensing complex ideas into simple ones as Neil Young, it’s hard not to be frustrated. But Jodie has overcome the ordeal with how much fun she makes everything fun.”
Pisano had a long association with Belushi, who died of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles in 1982. She was also a creative partner, designing the Blues Brothers logo and contributing backstories to their characters Jake and Elwood. “Jacqueline was our blues sister,” Aykroyd says. Rolling Stone“She was a creative participant, not only as John’s wife but in other ways.” After Belushi’s death, Pisano (who remarried to Vincent Pisano in 1990; they divorced in 2010) forged her own career, co-authoring best-selling comic books (Teaters 101: An Introduction to Children's Literature and Mother's Book) and wrote samurai widowa memoir about her life with Belushi; she also co-wrote a biography of him that was intended to make amends to Bob Woodward for his mistake. Wired.
Five years ago, Pisano, who began learning the oud, took her first tentative steps toward a late-life musical career, writing “Bones the Dog” for her recently deceased pet. According to her sister, Pam Jacqueline, Pisano’s turn to music wasn’t entirely unexpected: Even before she met Belushi, Pisano loved everything from her parents’ Sinatra records to rock and blues, and played drums “randomly for a while.” Pisano also wrote poetry as a young woman.
In 2020, Pisano was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and her songwriting took a more contemplative turn, as heard in “The Best Days,” which also touches on her life with Belushi (“I married a rebel/
(“I fought the devil/And I lived to tell the story.”) “Come Back Soon, Babe” takes its title from a note her late husband left her when “Paisano, who was battling her husband’s drug addiction, went away for a little while to get some rest,” Jacqueline says. She then wrote a poem about that time, which became the basis for a song decades later.
By 2022, Pisano had enough songs that she decided to perform a few at the first Blues Brothers Con, also held at Old Joliet Prison. But before the show, she came down with what she thought was laryngitis. At her doctor’s urging, she decided to persevere. But on stage, Jacqueline recalls, “she sang and after the first verse, she stopped and said to the audience, ‘I’m not going to put you through this torture.’”
As Pisano learned, it wasn’t just laryngitis that was the problem. Her cancer had spread and the tumor was pressing on her vocal cords—just when she was about to begin a new chapter in her creative life as a singer. “It felt so cruel,” says Pisano. “She was able to open this thing up and move on with her life, and it was taken away from her.”
A year later, in 2023, Pisano entered a nursing home, given months to live. From her bed, often with her small guitar, she enlisted Taylor’s help to record her songs. But her condition, says Jacqueline, had robbed Pisano of her voice, and her singing was now more raspy and weak. Taylor gently augmented the recordings with additional instruments to enhance the songs and Pisano’s performance. “The challenge was not to get in the way, not to make instruments that would compete with her voice in a way that would destroy it,” Taylor says.
According to Taylor, the frailty of Pisano's voice as heard in those recordings adds to its power. “Most of what's on there is very fragile, because she was in the last stages of her life,” he says. “But even when she was playing at the end of her life, when a lot of her vocal cords were paralyzed and unable to function, she was able to play a solo on the oud and hold your attention for three and a half minutes in a really compelling way.”
At Blues Brothers Con, attendees heard Ben Taylor, his aunt (and James’ sister) Kate, and singer Precious Taylor (niece of the great blues singer Koko Taylor) perform some of those songs, from the soothing “River” to the heartbreaking “Bones the Dog.” Two years ago, Blues Brothers Con ticket buyers lined up to get Pisano’s autograph; this year, they listened intently to others sing her songs and were warmly welcomed. Recordings of two of Pisano’s compositions, “Fingernails (Ba Ba Ba)” and “Best Days,” were also played, along with accompanying videos.
It is not yet clear what exactly the recordings will yield. According to Luke Pisano, some of the recordings may be preserved in their original state; others may benefit from additional production or guest appearances to compensate for his mother's later vocal problems. Carly Simon, a longtime friend of Pisano's, has already contributed music to several of the songs; more guests may follow.
“Ben and I were discussing how to move forward from here,” Pisano says in a backstage trailer at Blues Brothers Con, where his aunt and Taylor’s family members are sitting nearby. “He made the point that if anyone else sang these songs, it would detract from them, because she sang them so effortlessly, and they were her own compositions. But with her voice in the state it was in, there was room to explore.” [augmenting the tapes]“If it feels right, let's see what kind of album we can make. At least, if nothing else happens from this, we have something we can say, 'Listen to this – this is incredible.'”
But Pisano says his mother wanted the songs to be an album, and he’s determined to make her dream come true. “She once said the biggest thing to her was, ‘I just want people to listen to this music,’” he says. “She was really serious about it. That was one of the promises I made to her.”
