It all began with guys in ‘Cadillac Records’
WEEKENDER, March 27, 2009
The film “Cadillac Records” uses a phrase I was unfamiliar with: "race records."
That means music by African-American artists. It hardly evokes a positive image.
“Cadillac Records” brings up a lot of different topics in its nearly two-hour run.
It's main shortfall — and that's probably because of the time element — is it doesn't give us much of the background, the motivation for the talented artists who eventually form the core of what becomes rock 'n roll, rap and hip-hop.
“Cadillac Records” chronicles the life of one Leonard Chess, played by Adrien Broady, who operates a Chicago junkyard in 1941 but decides what he really wants to do is open a club and eventually a legendary recording studio on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
The club spotlights African-American artists whose ancestors were slaves and truly know the blues.
But they also know how to play guitar. Boy can they play guitar.
Among the early artists are Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer, who narrates), Little Walter (Columbus Short) and Jimmy Rogers (Kevin Mambo.)
The club is a mecca for the blues. It is frequently the scene of fights, gunfire and the place is a haze of smoke.
Much of the film takes place during years of racial tension and inequality.
While in the South, black artists had to pretend to be Chess' chauffeur, since blacks and whites couldn't hang out together.
As lively and fun as the music is, the film really takes off with the introduction of Mos Def, one of our great young actors, playing a dead-on Chuck Berry. Berry isn't really a bluesman and in the mid 1950s, nobody really knows for sure what he is. Is he country?
When a white nightclub owner accuses him of trying to pass for white in his posters, a seething Barry smiles and says he's Indian, before pulling down the poster and leaving, losing the gig.
It is Berry who breaks the color barrier. In one tremendous scene, he is singing and duck-walking across the stage. A barrier keeps blacks to the left, whites to the right. But the flimsy barrier is soon shredded and the races are dancing and enjoying the music together, much to the disdain of the police.
The police are very much the villain in this film.
The time element is somewhat bothersome. In midfilm we seen five guys who are supposed to be the Rolling Stones but look nothing like them shaking hands with Muddy, saying they got the name of the band from one of his songs.
We then hear some of the Stones’ cover of Muddy's “I Can't Be Satisfied. “(It's not to be mixed up with the Stones' own “I Can't Get No Satisfaction,” released a year later.)
OK, the Stones visited Chess Records in Chicago in 1964. Later we see film snippets on TV of Elvis joining the Army. That was 1958. In the film, Chess sells his record company and dies. Afterward, Howln' Wolf (Eamonn Walker) is amazed as he visits England and sees all of his fans, or as many fans as a film on a budget can afford to have.
Except the film has him going to England in 1967, but Chess doesn't die until 1969.
Still, the film works. Beyonce Knowles is very credible as the drug-addicted, troubled Etta James, a tremendous talent who somehow escaped an early death and is alive today.
The movie title comes from the fact that owning a Cadillac was considered a real sign one has arrived as an artist. So Chess gave them out to his artists in lieu of real cash. They were happy and it was cheaper for him.
See "Cadillac Records" for the music, for the history. It is like a 1-hour, 49-minute crash course on rock 'n roll.
CADILLAC RECORDS • Directed and written by Darnell Martin • Rated R for pervasive language, drug use and some sexuality • Runtime: 1 hour, 49 minutes • 4 stars out of 5
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