Three out of four stars (Rated R for pervasive language, violence, drug use, and some sexuality) Running time: 109 minutes. Reviewed at The Woodlands Tinseltown 17 on December 5.
During their less than successful first tour of America in June 1964, the Rolling Stones spent two days recording fourteen songs at Chess Records in Chicago. Included in the mix were “It’s All Over Now” and “Time Is On My Side,” a hit record which they played to a national TV audience several months later on Ed Sullivan.
One song captured the characteristic “sound” of the famed recording studio: “2120 South Michigan Avenue,” which happened to be the South Chicago address. An instrumental piece, it opens with a pulsating bass riff by Bill Wyman and concludes with Brian Jones blowing away on the harmonica in a stirring solo performance. (Note: You can hear the tune on the Stones’ “12 X 5”)
For less than a minute the Rolling Stones—portrayed by actors, of course—turn up in the new movie “Cadillac Records,” a rambling, running history of Chess Records from its origins in the 1940s until the late 1960s. Five young men with mop haircuts appear outside and tell famed bluesman Muddy Waters that they named their band after the lyrics of one of his tunes. And then they disappear, showcasing a weakness of the script—there is so much to cover and so little time to do so.
Ah, but “Cadillac Records” has music and lots of it, all rhythm and blues from a glorious time in post war America that was eventually assimilated into rock and roll. “The following is based on a true story” opens the movie but screenwriter Darnell Martin, who also directs, has taken some liberty with the facts.
When in reality two Polish-born brothers, Leonard and Philip Chess, created Chess Records in 1947, only Leonard (Adrien Brody) surfaces in the movie. One of his first big acts is to record Muddy Waters, a Mississippi sharecropper who came to Chicago to play a mean slide guitar on the streets waiting to be discovered. Waters is played by a terrific Jeffrey Wright, who in the matter of a month has gone from being a CIA agent in “Quantum of Solace” to Secretary of State Colin Powell in “W.” And now he plays a blues legend. That is the mark of a very talented actor.
Chess believes there is a huge potential nationwide audience waiting to hear “race music” so both he and Waters take to the road to bribe Southern radio station DJs to play “I Can’t Be Satisfied,” the slide guitarist’ first big record. And the tradition begins in which the recording studio owner hands Waters the keys to a new Cadillac, a gesture repeated often.
Other acts come and go. Harmonica player Little Walter (Columbus Short) has a low flash point; mean looking Howlin’ Wolf (Eamonn Walker) maintains a long running feud with Waters; and songwriter Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer) serves as the narrator throughout.
But two acts endure: the first, Chuck Berry (a superb Mos Def), breaks the color barrier by transforming R&B into rock and roll for white audiences, followed by Etta James, played to the hilt by Beyonce Knowles, who can’t seem to shake her troubled past for a drug addiction. But man can she sing, and one of her tunes “At Last” is worth the price of admission.
As played by Brody, Chess comes across as part-genius and part-in-house psychotherapist for keeping the centrifugal forces that threaten his musical empire at bay. While the storyline is somewhat disjointed, the music really shines.
