Cadillac Records

The title of CADILLAC RECORDS comes from the penchant of Chess Records founder Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) for giving all of his recording artists Cadillacs as their music climbed up the charts. The film, narrated by songwriter Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer), chronicles the parallel intertwined destinies of Chess, a dirt-poor young Polish Jewish immigrant in ’40s America determined to make some money, and Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), who went from singing while he worked as a crop picker to contributing heavily to the invention of rock and roll. When Chess and Waters hook up professionally in the early ’50s, they both find themselves riding a wave, with Waters making a new kind of music and Chess doing what he has to in order to get the music heard. Other musicians come onto the scene – the rambunctious Little Walter (Columbus Short), the competitive Howlin’ Wolf (Eamonn Walker), the infectious Chuck Berry (Mos Def) and the troubled Etta James (Beyonce Knowles) – each of them having an effect on the sound of the blues, on the evolution of rock, on each other and on Chess.