Cruising With Cadillac Records

The best movies about the recording industry stay faithful to the genre - they tend to let the music speak for itself which is the case with Cadillac Records, the recently released cinematic story of the rise and fall of Chicago's Chess label. It moves seamlessly through the mosaic of blues musicians that made Chess famous, touching along the way on racism, drug addiction, marital infidelity, all the subjects that define the genre.


The story is told by Willie Dixon, played reverently by Cedric the Entertainer, but the "soul" of the story is really Muddy Waters. From the moment Muddy is "discovered" in Clarksdale, Mississippi by an earnest Alan Lomax until he steps off the plane to an icon's welcome in England, he is a towering figure. Waters moves to Chicago and eventually attracts the attention of - at that time - club owner Leonard Chess. Chess decides to start a record label, complete with a unique revolving disc and tone arm mounted above the door, in a black neighborhood of Chicago, an improbable feat for a Polish immigrant who knew next to nothing about the blues.


The first few releases in the early 1950s - like "Honeybee"- feature Muddy's unique style of plucking away at the guitar , creating a resonant, commanding tone that takes his Delta roots to new levels. His early records are an instant hit, but Waters' musical journey twists in another direction with the addition to the band of a nearly destitute Little Walter, discovered playing harmonica on a street corner. Muddy takes him in, little realizing that his protege' will eventually fall in love with his wife Geneva, and the two go on to cut classics like "40 Days and 40 Nights", and "Got My Mojo Working". In 1952, Little Walter records "Juke" , a solo instrumental with a backing band, that goes on to be a hit but, as with so many bluesmen, as Walter's career begins to rise, his personal life sinks, into a morass of heroin and booze. Little Walter becomes the underside of the Chess story, his life coming apart throughout the course of the movie - driving around with all the doors taken off his Cadillac, which earns him a beating at the hand of racist police - ramming another Caddy into Chess's front office, demanding that the label buy him a new one - and finally beaten to death, dying in Geneva Waters' arms.


A parade of musicians pass through the doors at Chess - Howlin Wolf, with his raspy wail of a voice, depicted as strong-willed but mesmerizing - Chuck Berry, played "def"-ly by Mos Def - and of course Etta James, portrayed flawlessly by Beyonce'. Unfortunately, as the Fifties draw to a close, Muddy Waters' music is eclipsed by rock and roll and he begins to rely on Leonard Chess' generosity. Chess is finally sold much to the dismay of its artists. In one of the movie's most poignant scenes, Etta James is singing "I'd Rather Be Blind" as Leonard passes through the studio for the last time, gets into his Cadillac, drives to the end of the street and dies from a heart attack.


Thanks to English fans, Muddy's career abruptly takes off in the early Sixties, and "Cadillac Records" ends with Willie Dixon's wry commentary as he and Muddy arrive in London. Even if you are a marginal fan of the genre, the movie documents the impact of the blues in a straight forward, uncompromising way, which makes you believe that this is the way it really happened.