Cadillac Records Movie Recap (2008)

 

Cadillac Records Movie Recap (2008) 

This is the story on how two unlikely forces team up and change the course of black music forever. Cedric the Entertainer, who plays Willie Dixon, help narrates this story on how rock music originates from black music. First of this party is Leonard Chess, he’s a Polish immigrant who has a dream of opening a nightclub for Negros in Chicago. The other is McKinnley Morganfield, but we all would know him as Muddy Waters. He’s a sharecropper from Mississippi. One day, Alan Womack wants to record him for the Library of Congress and after this he realized he has a gift. After this experience, he packs everything and moves to the big city of Chicago. But once there, the folks in Chicago aren’t fond of this as they call it “sharecropper” music. But a woman name Gineva Wade wants to give him the time of day and they do things that I can’t say on YouTube. After their love making, she given him an amp, that way everyone hears his sound.

Len gets the nightclub he wanted but is warned about opening a club in a black neighborhood. While in Chicago, Muddy meets harmonica player Walter Jacobs, later known as Little Walter. After riding his other guitar player, Muddy and Walter team up. They alongside Jimmy Rogers form a collective called the headhunters. They arrive at Chess Nightclub and outplays the house band. After this Little Walter decides to raise all hell and this won’t be the last reckless thing he does in this picture. Their first encounter with Len doesn’t go well, but a few days later Len finds Muddy and he wants to record with Muddy. After recording their record, they go around the south to make it to radio. But they have to be careful when traveling to the south, but as long as the police presume that Muddy is Len’s chauffer, they won’t have a major issue. They run into groupies at a hotel and it causes Len to leave as he’s married.

Eventually Muddy’s record land into Chicago radio. But Len suffers a setback when his nightclub get’s burned down but fortunately, the insurance money he got from the accident and put it in a recording studio and Chess Records was born. While recording “40 Days”, engineers have a problem of Walter’s harmonica overpowering Muddy’s vocals. But Len decides to keep it in as it’s innovative. Then they let Little Walter cut a record and it goes #1 on the R&B Charts and thanks to his success, Len gifts Walter a Cadillac. That’s where we meet Willie Dixon. He’s was one of the main songwriter of Chess Records and he grows concerns that Muddy sound was becoming redundant. So Willie comes up a riff that’ll change the course of music.

Len informs Walter that his mother has passed away in New Orleans. We get a backstory that he isn’t really close with his family at all. This will cause his decent further, especially when Muddy offers him a flask when he refused. It leads him to record his signature record “My Babe”. But while touring, Little Walter discovers that several people are using his name and likeness to make money, this was trend in those times. We get a montage of Muddy and Len with their lovers but Muddy has more than one lover. It had all caught up for him when Gineva holds a baby that aint hers. She and Walter get close but Gineva does push back on him.

We meet Howlin Wolf but he’s not that easy to work with. He doesn’t like Len leading his band, won’t take any loans, and he gets into it with Muddy of his infidelity. Back with Little Walter, he still wildin. He done remove the doors from his Cadillac because it got too hot. He then gets racially profiled by the police to the point they do what they do best and they nearly bludgeon him to death. Back with the Wolf, Muddy starts to perform with some of his band members out of spite and Wolf threatens him. Let us know the Wolf aint playing. Walter, who has been living with Muddy & Gineva for years decide to move out. He then drives his Cadillac into Chess and orders Len to gift him a new one. But back at Chess, we meet Chuck Berry one of Rock n Roll pioneers. Chuck had a unique sound that could crossover and Maybeline become a huge pop record, yes a pop record. Thanks to his duck walking on stage, he was able to bridge the gap between black and white separated by a rope.

Muddy starts to notice that Len got a huge house and multiple Cadillacs while he doesn’t have much. That’s when Len tells him that Chuck has been paying everyone with his records while Muddy records are no longer selling. While Chuck had the entire nation at the palm of his hand he had one weakness, snow bunnies. Glad Dr. Umar was alive then because Chuck would give him 50,000 lashes. With Mr. Chess he wanted female talent on his label and thus we meet Etta James, played by Beyonce. First meeting goes as a mistaken prostitute encounter but Chess realize that Etta has a God given voice. Chess starts to take a deep interest in Etta and wants her to enjoy the finer things of life. But some things money can’t fix especially her behavior in a private rented out restaurant.

Chuck is noticed that his records are getting stolen, example “Surfin USA” by Beach Boys. Chuck refuses to record anything because what’s the point of recording a song knowing the white man going to steal it. It would be here where Chuck Berry gets arrested for taking a minor across state lines. And that ended his eighteen-month career. Cops is then caught harassing again, this time some English boys, those boys would be The Rolling Stones who been interested in Muddy’s music for years. Then we get the defining scene of this whole movie, Etta James singing “At Last”. Etta is missing airtime but Muddy finds her passed out, but get’s restored when Len arrives. Etta fears that the house she just got is going to get repossed and that’s when Len offers to put the house payments in his hand. Etta seduces Leonard Chess and she goes in for the kiss.

You can see Len was starting to get stressed (I’m going to have more to say about this at the end of the video). But his acts were falling apart. Once Chuck got out of prison the music moved on and Elvis became your King of Rock N Roll. For Little Walter, his addiction and lifestyle caught up to him. He shows up to Gineva, the only woman that really cared for him, bloody and badly beaten Walter and he winded up dying in her arms. Circumstances around Walter’s death is very controversial, but what is known was that Little Walter died broke. Muddy was broke, Len was beating around the bush about who was going to pay for Walter’s funeral, but thanks to Howlin Wolf not accepting handouts he pays for Walter’s homegoing. Len stress levels are so high, he sells Chess Records but it was something he couldn’t let go. As Etta James “I Rather Go Blind”, Chess suffers a heart attack and dies (and yes Hollywood satire his death). Before his death, he gives Etta the deed to her house. Muddy actually finds new work overseas as he alongside other Chess alums became major. He alongside Willie Dixon sued Chess for back royalties (not towards Leonard Chess estate since he sold the company) and got a nice payday. The film closes with Chess alums on when they got into the Rock N Roll HOF, Willie Dixon in 1994, Howlin Wolf in 1991, Etta James in 1993, Chuck Berry in the inaugural class of 1986, Little Walter in 2008 (just when this film was coming out as he became the first exclusive harmonica player to get in), Leonard Chess in 1987 alongside Muddy Waters the same year.

This movie was pretty decent, but I have thoughts. Start off with Etta James, & Beyonce got top billing even though she doesn’t appear in the movie for a full hour, Etta might’ve been wild but was very dependent on Mr. Chess and I find this kind of similar on how Berry Gordy relationship with Diana Ross. She was the token girl that his label needed as Etta had a rough upbringing. In the end, Etta never coped well after Len’s death as in the 70s, she was in and out of rehab/prison. Movin on Howlin Wolf, and he was the smartest man on Chess Records. He never took advances from Chess and was never in the mood for their BS (especially Muddy’s) and because he never took advance, he was able to put down some money for Walter’s homegoing. Chuck Berry I’m not going to waste time with him and while Mos Def did him well, I felt like he was more of a side piece in this movie anyway. Little Walter, this dude was reckless. Firing a gun at someone posing as him (kinda justifiable), taking the doors out his Cadillac and asking Len for another. Notice he said he never drinks until Muddy gave him a flask and he’s been hooked ever since. But with him and Gineva, she was the only person that truly cared for Walter. Muddy was kind of a fool, once Chess got big, he noticed he wasn’t getting his just due financially. Not to mention he was cheating on his wife, hooking Walter on alcohol and his beef with the Wolf, he was not the best influence to be around. Lastly, Leonard Chess, I feel for him because he tried to fight for his artist like he was father. Walter stressed him, Muddy stressed him, Etta really stressed him and in the end it was all the stress that caused him to die. Overall, I enjoyed this movie go check it out if you haven’t seen it, but I’m warning you, you will have gray hairs once you finished.