Music Review: Beyonce, Mos Def on 'Cadillac Records' CD
Kevin Amorim - Newsday
Dec 02, 2008
"Cadillac Records" Soundtrack
(standard, one-disc version)
The Grade: A
The Bottom Line: The blues never sounded so good.
At last. With the "Cadillac Records" soundtrack we get to hear Beyonce and Mos Def through the Wayback Machine.
The story of Chess Records and the 1950s Chicago blues scene follows the legends who recorded for the label, including Etta James (Beyonce), Chuck Berry (Mos Def), "Hoochie Coochie Man" Muddy Waters (actor Jeffrey Wright comes down with a good case of the blues on his version of "I'm a Man," among others) and Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer).
Read a review for the 'Cadillac Records' movie
This soundtrack (Columbia) is actually a two-way time machine, with a mix of classic R&B covers and current soul sounds.
The centerpiece, Beyonce's reading of the tragic and troubled James' signature ballad, "At Last," simmers as the enraptured classic did. She also kills on the still-haunting "I'd Rather Go Blind." You could say Sasha gets fierce on the song James co-wrote and first recorded in 1968. She delivers the emotional goods on such lines as, "You see I love you so much that I don't want to watch you leave me, baby/Most of all, I just don't want to be free, no."
When Chess Records wanted to move beyond R&B, into this new thing called "rock and roll," the label signed the sound's architect, Berry. And Brooklyn rapper-actor Mos Def does a fine job of re-creating "No Particular Place to Go" and "Nadine." Hail! Hail! Mos Def.
"Cadillac Records" also adds some new, albeit retro-sounding soul -- "6 O'Clock Blues" from Solange, the slinky "Let's Take a Walk," from former Tony! Toni! Tone! vocalist Raphael Saadiq and the title track from the new Mary Mary album, "The Sound."
It makes sense that Nas' "Bridging the Gap" closes things, with help from his dad, Olu Dara, and the song's sample of Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy." It's an apt analogy for a soundtrack thatbridges eras.
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