when rock and roll dreams come through
2120 S Michigan Avenue (The Rolling Stones)
Don’t know what the movie will be like, but the soundtrack ought to kill: Sony BMG is doing a feature film on the guys behind Chess Records, with Matt Dillon set to play Leonard Chess. This label launched people like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Chuck Berry, to name a few, and made the modest building on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue a landmark in recording history. The Chess brothers were right there when Chicago blues was becoming a thing unto itself. It’ll be interesting to see what the role of the label was in that scene.
Chess was a Polish immigrant, growing up in Chicago and loving the blues. Cadillac Records is set to start shooting in January and be released later in 2008.
Everywhere you turn these days is a sign that the recording industry is well into middle age (by some indicators, maybe in mid-life crisis): Stax, Chess and the Grammys themselves have all turned or are turning 50 (I guess, since Chess is gone and Stax and the Grammys are going strong, that’s not quite the way to put it). Rolling Stone turned 40, and the Rolling Stones are well beyond. It doesn’t hurt to look back at what labels did when there was no one else to do it. For example, from Chess:
Muddy Waters, Mad Love
Howlin’ Wolf, Goin’ Down Slow
Etta James, Baby What You Want Me to Do
and this:
Willie Dixon: Weak Brain, Narrow Mind
categories: biz, film, music
tags: 2120 S. Michigan Ave., Cadillac Records, Chess Records, Etta James, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon
posted by what at 03:00 am
Etta James Etta James Etta James Etta James Etta James Etta James Etta James Etta James Etta James Etta James Etta James Etta James -forever, amen.
Oh and the Willie Dixon…thank you, what, for starting my day with this. Beautiful.
I’ll be watching for Cadillac Dreams next year.
Yes, Etta. But your comment made me realize I screwed the film title. It’s “Cadillac Records“, not Dreams, like I originally wrote. Don’t know how I could have done that, since I spent an hour googling trying to figure out why that title. Was the studio ever called that? Not that I could tell. It started as “Aristocrat Records”. Closest I could come: Chess started out by selling platters from the trunk of his Cadillac.
The side story of Wexler and Ertegün in the movie “Ray” was one of my favorite parts, so I’m looking forward to how they do this story.
Saw Etta James this September with B.B. King and Al Green.
It’s too bad she doesn’t have the range she use to have when
she sang. Despite that it was a great show.
What a way to start my week off! Thanks, What. Etta is a goddess. Yes, she doesn’t have the same range since her surgery (she had to have surgery, no one looses that much weight without it), but the time I’d seen her before that she was in a wheel chair b/c she couldn’t get around anymore. I’m glad she’s still with us. Didn’t she use to open for the Stones, way back when? That would have been something to see! Willie Dixon, so influential. So many people covered his songs.
I like “dreams” better than “records”. In any case, I can’t wait for the movie.
And What, I can’t get the Etta song to play all the way through. Is it just me?