![]() Filming locations included Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Jersey. The filming of Cadillac Records started in February 2008. The screenplay was written by director Darnell Martin. Production Beyoncé at the premiere party for the release of the film The label started selling records from the back of Chess' Cadillac, and launched the careers of legendary musical personalities such as blues singers and harmonica and guitar players Little Walter and Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, soul legend Etta James and guitarist singer-songwriters Chuck Berry and Willie Dixon. He ran the legendary company with his brother, Phil, through the 1950s and '60s. Leonard Chess was the co-founder of the 1950s American record label Chess Records, located in Chicago, Illinois. ![]() Elvis Presley as himself (archive footage uncredited).Vincent D'Onofrio as Mississippi DJ (uncredited).Eamonn Walker as Chester Burnett/Howlin' Wolf.Columbus Short as Walter Jacobs/Little Walter.Jeffrey Wright as McKinley Morganfield/Muddy Waters.Inevitably, business and personal lines blur as the sometimes-turbulent lives of the musicians play out. This attracts stars like Etta James ( Beyoncé), Howlin' Wolf ( Eamonn Walker) and Chuck Berry ( Mos Def). Waters' and Walter's success leads to Chess opening the doors for black musicians and beginning a new record label in 1950 – Chess Records. In 1947 in Chicago, a Jewish immigrant from Poland and bar owner Leonard Chess ( Adrien Brody) hires a blues combo, including guitarist Muddy Waters ( Jeffrey Wright) and harmonica player Little Walter ( Columbus Short). The soundtrack was released on Music World/Columbia and Sony Music. The film was released in North America on December 5, 2008, by TriStar Pictures. The film stars Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon, Yasiin Bey as Chuck Berry, Columbus Short as Little Walter, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Eamonn Walker as Howlin' Wolf, and Beyoncé as Etta James. The film explores the musical era from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, chronicling the life of the influential Chicago-based record-company executive Leonard Chess, and a few of the musicians who recorded for Chess Records. Howlin’ Wolf even makes certain one of Waters’ women is in the studio for him to seductively serenade while Waters looks on.Cadillac Records is a 2008 American biographical drama film written and directed by Darnell Martin. They’re like lions battling one another for supremacy in the pride. Martin mostly catches the sexual energy that goes into these recordings as the musicians treat music as a way to strut their stuff and top their rivals. ![]() The film is narrated by Cedric the Entertainer’s Dixon, a device that makes the film feel more like a staged documentary than interpretative music history along the lines of “Ray” or “Walk the Line.” What jump-starts the company are the recordings of Delta-born slide guitarist Waters, followed by the addition of Dixon, a bassist who also is a talented producer and songwriter. “Cadillac” reduces this to a single brother, Leonard (Brody), and whizzes us through the brief but pivotal history of the label. Brothers Phil and Leonard Chess, who owned an upscale nightclub on Chicago’s South Side, began recording blues artists on their indie label Chess Records in the ’50s. The story of how “sharecropper music” evolved into both rock and R&B marks a seminal moment in American music history, which perhaps explains why two movies have emerged this year about Chess Records, the other being “Who Do You Love,” which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film might only enjoy modest boxoffice, but for music buffs this is one terrific soundtrack. With Adrien Brody as Polish emigre Leonard Chess, who ran Chess Records, and Jeffrey Wright as the great Muddy Waters, Mos Def as “crossover” artist Chuck Berry, Cedric the Entertainer as multitalented Willie Dixon, Eamonn Walker as domineering Howlin’ Wolf, Columbus Short as the mercurial Little Walter and Gabrielle Union as Muddy’s long-suffering woman, it’s a movie that catches the eye as well as the ear. That starts with executive producer Beyonce Knowles, who performs dynamic versions of Etta James classics and delivers the dramatic goods as the troubled and badly addicted young woman who lives the blues she sings. Nevertheless, writer-director Darnell Martin has assembled a stellar cast to impersonate these artists both as characters and musicians. “Cadillac Records” comes from Sony Music Film, so it’s no surprise that the project is more a soundtrack in search of a movie than a film about the pre-eminent blues record label of the 1950s and ’60s and the fabulous artists who passed through its Chicago recording studio.
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