Should you ever get the chance, start your new year with Bill Murray singing, his fists clenched, his arms thrusting furiously downward like they had nowhere to go, that doughy Wilmette mug scrunched with so much feeling … he’s joking, right? I saw Bill Murray & His Blood Brothers on Friday at Thalia Hall in Pilsen, and no, it was no joke. It was a blues-rock band plus Murray stepping forward occasionally to croon. It was a reminder that there are few things in life as satisfying as Bill Murray singing, even if the man is no singer. Indeed, that he doesn’t have a singing voice was always beside the point.
You laugh, not because that famous warble is all drama and no control. You laugh because it’s so personal. Bill Murray singing is the sound you make alone in your car.
It’s the joy of the amateur.
Except, not always: Several years ago, Murray began performing with cellist Jan Vogler, playing serious spaces like Symphony Center and the Chicago Theatre, pairing Vogler’s takes on American composers with Murray’s melancholy as he recited Hemingway and Whitman. These Blood Brothers concerts seem to put a stamp on how serious Murray can get about music. Despite his name being prominent in the billing, despite the show opening oddly with a prerecorded montage of Murray movie lines, he spent a big chunk of the night hovering in the back with a cowbell, lost in the sound mix, just part of the band.
Until, now and again, he would step forward and take over a Dave Clark Five tune or slip into a Paul Butterfield Blues Band classic (“Born in Chicago”), and then that joy returned.
“Any one of you could sing with this band,” he told the sold-out crowd.
Meaning, anyone here could sing just as badly.
Who knows how regular this blues-rock gig will be for the perpetually roaming Murray, but the timing is good. The line between comedy and music, always porous, has been looking extra liminal lately. Some of our best pop performers are our funniest, and some of our funniest comics are terrific musicians. Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram dice songs into bit-sized punchlines. Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” arguably the song of 2024, was a laugh-out-loud roast of Drake. A whole generation of rappers — Lil Yachty, Cardi B, Tyler, the Creator — are effortlessly funny without veering to parody. Conversely, Bo Burnham’s 2021 Netflix film “Inside” was musical parody that dropped legitimate bangers, and the recent pairing of the Lonely Island and Charli XCX on “Saturday Night Live” — for a video about Andy Samberg’s delight in calling the cops on neighbors — worked well because Samberg has the uncanny fluidity of pop singers.
Murray, at least in his enthusiasm, has been ahead of his time for decades.
Watching him in Pilsen, I was reminded of how much of his fame is tied to music. Singing “Take Me Out to the Ballpark” at Wrigley Field. Singing an ode to “Star Wars” on “SNL.” Singing “Bare Necessities” (as a bear) in the live action “Jungle Book” remake. His heartbreaking scene in “Lost in Translation,” belting Roxy Music’s “More Than This” at a Tokyo karaoke bar and connecting too closely to the sentiment: “You know there’s nothing / More than this.” The military parade marching song in “Stripes.” He sang Olivia Newton John’s “Physical” with Paul Shaffer’s band in the very first episode of “Late Night with David Letterman,” and for the closing credits of his 2014 indie film “St. Vincent,” he sang all of Bob Dylan’s “Shelter From the Storm.” Also, let’s not forget YouTube, awash in clips of Murray getting on stage at golf tournaments and birthday celebrations, singing with everyone from John Prine to Eric Clapton.
And yet, probably the funniest thing about this Blood Brothers thing is how the audience seems to be staring past a half-dozen actual musicians to the legend standing in back, nonchalantly poking at bongos, looking lost at times, picking over a table full of shakers.
It’s hard not to think of the Blues Brothers.
Just as the Blues Brothers were almost embarrassingly stacked with accomplished rhythm and blues veterans taking a back seat to “SNL”-bred amateurs, the Blood Brothers is fronted by two seasoned blues-rock stalwarts, Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia. But other than a deliciously clever blues reworking of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” — alas, not sung by Murray — they’re polished professionals, only occasionally compelling.
Ironically, it’s precisely Murray’s lack of polish that allows a little genuine soul to sneak through. When he takes on the Kinks’ “Tired of Waiting for You,” he lapses into the ragged comic we know, belting “SO tired … SO tired …,” wavering from caustic to kidding. Likewise, he brings a harsh talk-singing to “Like a Rolling Stone,” relishing the song’s nastier kiss-offs and punching up the chorus into the kind of anthemic rave-up that would have worked nicely at one time as the climatic scene in, well, a Bill Murray movie.
I feel for the Blood Brothers.
Fronting famously unserious people must be a thankless job for serious musicians. The history of legitimately funny musical acts that are not parodies is a short. The Beastie Boys. Devo. Wilco has always been funny. The Beatles, of course. More recently, Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande. Before losing his sense of humor, Kanye West was hilarious. Times change. Though a band like the Clash was once the peak of self-righteous rock, a line like “If Adolph Hitler flew in today / They’d send a limousine anyway” wouldn’t sound strange these days coming from a speaking-truth-to-power stand-up comic like Chris Rock or Bill Burr.
Bill Murray, albeit goofy, isn’t going for anything so bold or irreverent with the Blood Brothers. It also isn’t a vanity project. If anything, it’s another reminder from Murray that there is no one way to be. You just have to mean it. And being funny helps. He is the guy at the wedding who gets on stage with the band, belts out “In the Midnight Hour,” surprises everyone and makes everyone smile. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but in the movie playing in his head, it’s amateur hour.
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
