Best Of Chess: Original Versions Of Songs in Cadillac Records

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Product Description The 2008 movie Cadillac Records is the story of Chess Records. The Best of Chess is the original versions of the songs used in the Cadillac Records movie starring Beyonce, Mos Def, Solange, Jeffrey Wright, Raphael Saadiq and others. Cadillac Records chronicles the history of Chess Records, the pre-eminent blues label of the 1950s and 1960s co-founded by Leonard Chess and his brother Phil. Featured songs in Cadillac Records by Etta James (played by Beyonce Knowles), Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), Little Walter (Columbus Short), Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer), Chuck Berry (Mos Def), Howlin' Wolf (Eamonn Walker) and more. Review CHESS: THE REAL THING Beyonce and crew take a crack at fifties hits, but there's no replacing the originals The Best Of Chess Records: five stars Whatever its cinematic merits, "Cadillac Records," the new film about the legendary blues and R&B label Chess, has already performed the valuable public service of exposing some of the greatest American songs to millions who might not otherwise have heard them. There would be no rock & roll without Bo Diddley's walloping backbeat and Chuck Berry's pealing guitar solos; no strutting rappers without the badass blues boasts of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf; no Beyoncé crooning "If I Were a Boy" in 2008 without Etta James' pained pleading of "Trust in Me" 47 years earlier. Even if you've never heard the originals, you know this music in your bones. There's no improving on the Chess catalog, and this new compilation is a great place to start soaking it in. It includes signature songs from Diddley ("I'm a Man"), Waters ("Forty Days and Forty Nights"), Wolf ("Smokestack Lightnin' ") and James ("At Last"), as well as three tunes by Little Walter, a hurricane disguised as singer and harmonica player. The only thing you lose is how startlingly innovative these songs were in the Fifties. So concentrate instead on the still-shocking power of Waters' and James' singing, and the poetry (not too strong a word) of Berry's road songs -- the most compact, artfully artless songwriting in rock & roll history. -- Rolling Stone Magazine, January 1, 2009