Jake and Elwood had a much less organic origin, but the story of Dick McGordon and the Blues Brothers is just as entertaining. To hear McGordon tell it, this band of fellows bound by the love of good fishing and good company started as nothing more than an innocent holiday fishing trip. “As an organization,” says McGordon, “it didn’t really start that way… it just kind of happened.”
Some 40 years ago, McGordon and his wife had been invited down to Buxton, North Carolina for a Thanksgiving weekend fishing trip. We all know how fish stories go, but having heard so much about the incredible fishing along the Carolina coast, he decided to take his friend up on the offer. The McGordons brought three other couples along for the trip. Unknowingly, the menfolk in the bunch would eventually form the nucleus of the Blues Brothers. “It was really out there,” says McGordon of this first trip to the coastline. “You really needed a four-wheel drive… but we didn’t have any of that back then.”
The group was met with more surprises when they finally reached their destination. The hotel proprietor told them their host – and guide for this trip – was called away with a family emergency. So these rookie surfcasters were now on their own. “We didn’t do anything right,” says McGordon. “We’d surf cast for spots at Garden City before, but that was about it.” But despite all the lost lures and countless other mistakes, they had beginners’ luck on their side. “We caught so many fish it was scary… we were just piling them up!”
Miles from their wives, hot showers and beds, the fellas soon realized they’d perhaps overstayed their welcome. Dark had set in and they were all alone on the beach with mountains of fish, lines and tackle. And no ride home. Rescue, or at least a ride back, wasn’t as close as a cell phone call back then. But a pair of headlights off in the distance eventually found its way to their spot. One of the men’s wives had paid a man in a pickup truck twenty dollars to go fetch the fishermen. “He threw us, the fish and all of our gear in the back of the truck… it was the best ride of my life,” says McGordon of the group’s continued good fortune.
When it was all over, McGordon asked his wife if she’d had as wonderful an experience as he and the rest of the fishermen. “She said, ‘If I never see this place again it’ll be fine with me!’… it was Thanksgiving weekend, there was nothing open!”
That was the start of it. Over the years, more and more people have come along on the trips. Now the Blues Brothers find themselves renting six entire houses down in Avon to accommodate their group. McGordon says they try to support as many of the local businesses as they can while the group is in town, including the local MethodistChurch and the Outer Banks Preservation Society.
But what about that name? With a 40-plus year backstory, it predates Belushi, Akroyd and their Saturday Night Live characters. Well, you’ll have to ask McGordon about that one. He’ll be happy to tell the story Thursday night at the Jesse Brown’s Coastal Party. See you then!