Cadillac Records

Cadillac Records

Director:

Writer:

Starring:

Quotes:

Don't be looking at me like I ain't got no draws on.
That's a record!

Cadillac Records is a movie more about music, then about the Chess Records recording studio. Chess Records a recording studio started by Leonard Chess played by "Adrian Brody" located on the south side of Chicago. He had a love for a new kind of music back then, Blues. He helped bring the Blues sound and Rock and Roll to peoples ears. All starting with blues recordings of Muddy Waters played by "Jeffery Wright" and Little Walter "Columbus Short" he believes he can make a record label that all people will come to know. He sees this as an opportunity, to make quite a bit of money for himself and, some money for his new artists that bring this new sound. After Muddy Waters records his first hit record , Leonard Chess offers him a gift of a brand new Cadillac for all his hard work. Little does Muddy Waters know that the money buying that Cadillac is actually from his record royalties. From the late 1940's all the way to 1960's the movie shows how he signed great artists such as Howlin' Wolf, Etta James, and even Chuck Berry. Which brought about the sound of Rock n' Roll they we all have come to love.

In this film they do not exactly make it clear on whether Leonard Chess was actually stealing money from his recording artists or, just was a bad business man trying to take care of everyone. I personally do not know how historically accurate this film is but, the music sure is entertaining. You do get to see little scenes of each of his recording artists, which give you a little idea how hard it was for him to keep the company going . Although the main character is Adrian Brody, showing how he tried to keep Chess records afloat through out the years, even if it meant stealing from one performers profits to keep the record label going. Darnell Martin portrays him as man who treated everyone like family and, who tried to provide for all his artists. Atleast as much as the record label could as a whole, with its combined profits. He seems to get more than he bargained for with the combined difficulties of alcohol,drugs,frivolous spending from his artists and not to mention racism from others.

It is a hard task to show thirty years of history in such a small amount of time. Darnell Martin accomplishes this, with showing small bits of each of the musicians lives, piece by piece. Giving people a taste of each of the performers lives and a good dose of Blues to go along with it.

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