after a couple small roles on the screen,darnell martin shifted her talents to behind the camera. she's gone on to direct a number of moviesand plenty of tv shows you've probably seen, including episodes of oz, er, law & order,law & order: criminal intent and grimm, to name a few. along the way in her career, darnell has writtenthree movies. the first being a low budget film called ilike it like that which released in 1994. seven years after that, she wrote and directed2001's prison song. another seven years after that, darnell wroteand directed what is to date the most recent
film she's written and helmed. with a budget of about $12 million, 2008'scadillac records certainly wouldn't be considered a big-budget film as far as hollywood is concerned. even with a smaller budget, cadillac recordsboasts some impressive talent. from jeffrey wright, beyonce knowles and adrienbrody to supporting roles from cedric the entertainer, columbus short, gabrielle union,norman reedus, eamonn walker, vincent d'onofrio and many more. despite the name, cadillac records tells thetale of chess records, one of the preeminent blues record labels in the late 40s and 50s.
after the film was released, critics of themovie claimed it wasn't very historically accurate. let's dive into the rise of blues in chicagoas we compare history with cadillac records. i'm dan lefebvre. and this is based on a true story. if you're new to the show, this is where wetake a moment before we jump into the history behind the movie to play two truths and alie. here's how it works: i'll share three things. two of them are true and one of them is alie.
listen closely for the two truths scatteredthroughout the episode. then, by process of elimination you'll knowwhich one was a lie. we'll do a recap at the end of the episodeto see how well you did. ok, here they are:1. the beach boys' song surfin' usa was rippedoff of a chuck berry song. 2. muddy waters' real name was mckinley morganfield. 3. len chess was essentially a one-man show buildingchess records by himself.
before we continue, i just wanted to say "thankyou" to logan t. the idea for covering cadillac records was a request from logan. if you want to make a request you can shootme an email at dan@basedonatruestorypodcast.com and i'll add it to my growing backlog. although, to be honest, there's currentlyover 200 movies in that backlog, so if you want to guarantee your request getscovered and get plugged on the show, you can do that by becoming an official producer ofthe show over at patreon.com/basedonatruestorypodcast. once again that's patreon.com/basedonatruestorypodcast. and with that, let's compare history withhollywood's version of cadillac records!
the movie begins with willie dixon, who'splayed by cedric the entertainer, introducing himself and explaining the purpose for hisvoiceover as being for posterity's sake—to preserve the history of chess records. then we see those words we're all too familiarwith: the following is based on a true story. the year is 1941 when, according to the movie,a man from the library of congress comes out to mississippi to record a man named mckinleymorganfield playing his own style of folk music. this is true, but there's more to the storythan what we see in the movie. before we get to that particular moment, though,since the movie doesn't cover his younger
years, let's take a quick moment to understandwho mckinley morganfield was. mckinley was born on april 4th, 1913 on thefar western side of mississippi in issaquena county. that's right along the mississippi river betweenthe state of mississippi and louisiana. although he was technically born in the ruralcountry outside of any town, the closest town is rolling fork, so for all intents and purposesmckinley would refer to rolling fork, mississippi as his home town. his mother died only a couple years afterhe was born, so mckinley's grandmother raised him.
as a child, mckinley liked to play in theswampy areas in and around the mississippi river. because most of these ended up being muddypuddles, mckinley's grandmother gave him the nickname muddy waters—one that would stickwith him his entire life. in the movie we see a man who identifies himselfas alan lomax, who's played by tony bentley, along with john work from fisk university. together, alan and john pull up to muddy'ssmall home and ask if they can record him for the library of congress. these are both real people, and it was alanlomax along with his colleague, john work
iii, who would travel around the south tocapture folk music. as a little side note, there's another johnin the picture who was archiving music. that would be alan's father, john lomax, whostarted the project of capturing folklore and music in 1933 through a grant from theamerican council of learned societies. alan, who was 18 at the time, joined his fatherand soon grew to be just as passionate about the collection of songs as his father. john lomax would pass away in 1948, but notbefore he had earned a legacy for himself collecting thousands of songs in the u.s.and around the world. in 1941, though, the library of congress andfisk university in nashville, tennessee teamed
up for a two-year field study to documentthe folk culture in the mississippi delta region. as a part of this study, alan lomax and johnwork iii teamed up. some documentation puts alan's father johnalong with alan and john work iii, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were both therefor each and every recording. and muddy waters certainly wasn't the onlyunknown mississippi musician who was recorded for the project. in fact, alan was trying to record an artistnamed robert johnson. when he arrived in the region, alan discoveredrobert had passed away three years prior by
the locals. they recommended he record muddy waters instead;so he did. some others alan recorded include artistsyou've probably never heard of like wash dennis or artists that you've maybe heard their namebut don't know much about like thaddeus willingham, turner junior johnson and bozie sturdivant. of course, no one knows much about any ofthose artists. while the father-son team of john and alanlomax would get a lot of the credit for discovering folklore throughout the mississippi deltaregion, john work iii was just as involved. like those other artists who you've probablynever heard of who faded into history behind
muddy waters, collecting folklore for thejoint venture between fisk university and the library of congress saw john work iiifading into history behind john and alan lomax. back in the movie, after being introducedto muddy waters, who leaves mississippi to go to chicago, we're introduced len chessas he's opening macomba lounge in 1947. there's a fairly major plot point the movieis missing here. in fact, not just a plot point but a majorperson. len's brother, phil. well, technically phil is in the movie ashe's played by shiloh fernandez, but hardly. throughout most of the film we mostly seeadrien brody's version of len chess.
the true story is that in 1928, lejzor andfiszel czyå¼ moved to the u.s. with the rest of their family from a small village namedmotal in what's belarus today. as many families did, when they arrived inthe united states the czyå¼ family changed their name. lejzor became leonard. fiszel became phil. and the family name, czyå¼, became chess. while the movie makes it seem like chess recordswas something len chess did on his own, in truth it was both len and phil working togetherto build the record company.
although, as the movie shows, they didn'tstart with a record company. they also didn't start with macomba loungelike the movie implies. instead, len and phil chess started theirentrepreneurial careers when they bought a liquor store on the south side of chicago,in a predominantly african-american neighborhood. the liquor store took off, and soon they decidedto take their profits and open up a night club. that night club, called the macomba lounge,quickly earned itself a reputation for being the place to go to listen to good music—evenif it was at the risk of bumping elbows with drug dealers and prostitutes.
this isn't mentioned in the movie at all,but as the macomba lounge was helping grow the chess brothers' bankroll, in 1947, a husband-wifecombo by the name of charles and evelyn aron started a small label called aristocrat records. similar to as they did with when they transitionedfrom the liquor store to the night club, this time the chess brothers were looking for anotherinvestment opportunity. they invested in aristocrat records and becamepart-owners. in the movie we see muddy performing at themacomba lounge, along with a harmonica player named little walter. although there's a bit of a fight betweenlittle walter and a couple other musicians
and adrien brody's version of len chess tellsthem all to leave. that's fictionalized for the film, but thetruth is that even though muddy waters performed at the macomba lounge, he wasn't very popularthere. meanwhile, for two years, aristocrat recordswas…well, quite honestly, not very successful. most of their records were flops and thingsweren't looking very good. you see, the chess brothers were trying torecord the type of music that was flowing through their night club. it makes sense; but for whatever reason thatmusic didn't sell as well on records as it did in the club.
as the story goes, when len chess heard muddyplay for the first time, his reaction was less than impressed. he didn't think anyone would buy muddy's records. aristocrat co-owner evelyn aron suggestedthey try recording muddy anyway, since there had been a lot of people moving from mississippito chicago looking for work. she thought those folks moving north mightenjoy hearing music they were used to from the south. to offer a quick side note here, the reasonfor so many african-americans moving was because of something that began in 1916 that we nowrefer to as the great migration.
it wasn't any single event, but the greatmigration is the term for the relocation of over 6 million families that moved from therural south to cities in the west, midwest and northern united states between the yearsof 1916 and 1970. while it's hard to pinpoint a single reasonfor the moving of millions of families, most historians agree the primary causes for themove was a combination of harsh segregation that still lingered in the south along withpoor economic conditions for them. when world war i broke out in 1914, the u.s.needed more industrial workers. after the war, the need only continued andmany african-american families in the south took advantage of this need to find work.
many of those ended up on the south side ofchicago. and some of those were the musicians who playedat the macomba lounge. a talented few went on to be recorded foraristocrat records. the movie implies muddy waters first recordedat chess records, but the truth is muddy was one of the first recording artists at aristocratrecords. and he was immediately successful. as a quick side note, when i say the moviedoesn't mention aristocrat records, i mean it's not really a part of the plot. there is a very brief image for a couple secondswhere we see an extreme closeup of muddy waters'
first recording, "i can't be satisfied". at the bottom of the record, we see the words"manufactured by the aristocrat record corporation chicago, ill." so aristocrat is in there, if only just barely. in the movie we see the success of that firstrecord by way of a newspaper that flashes on screen. quite literally; i had to pause the movieto even be able to tell what it said for the split second it was up there. anyway, in the film cites an article fromseptember 18th, 1948 in the chicago defender
that says muddy's single "i can't be satisfied"sold 3,000 copies. while the defender is a real newspaper, nosuch article exists in the historical archives for the chicago defender. regardless, even if the article didn't existthe facts are true. aristocrat records pressed 3,000 copies ofthe single "i can’t be satisfied" and every copy sold in one day. still, the arons must've thought things werea bit too rocky because they sold the rest of the record label to the chess brothersat the end of 1949. then, on june 3rd, 1950, as the sole ownersof aristocrat records, len and phil chess
officially renamed the company to chess records. another artist we see in the movie is littlewalter, who's played by columbus short. according to the film, little walter playsharmonica for muddy waters but also records on his own. in another extremely quick flash on screen,we see the film depicting little walter's song called "juke" hitting the r&b best sellerslist. that little tidbit is also correct, althoughthere's a pretty significant detail the movie left out. it's similar to when the movie omitted thefacts about aristocrat records.
that detail is the simple fact that littlewalter's chart-topping instrumental called "juke" wasn't released by chess records. even though little walter played in muddy'sband, his style was different. so the chess brothers formed a subsidiarylabel they cleverly called checker records. so the label that released little walter'ssong, juke, as well as the song the movie mentions later, "my babe", wasn't chess…butchecker. there's yet another singer we see in the filmwhen adrien brody's version of len chess introduces jeffrey wright's muddy waters to a man simplyknown as "wolf". at least, that's what he's called in the movie.
the character is billed in the film as howlin'wolf, and he's played by eamonn walker. and again, this is another example of themovie taking some historically accurate details and mixing them in with some fiction to tellthe tale. the true story is that the man who recordedunder the pseudonym howlin' wolf was a 300-pound farmer named chester burnette. like the movie shows, howlin' wolf did singthe song "smokestack lightnin'" for chess records. that was in 1956. in the movie, it's that song we see eamonnwalker's version of howlin' wolf sing to a
woman in the studio. the idea here seems to be that even thoughmuddy waters was married, he had women on the side. and howlin' wolf was keen on taking thosewomen in somewhat of a competition with muddy. all of this is, well, we don't know. some historians say muddy waters was marriedin 1932 to a woman named mabel berry who would end up leaving muddy after he fathered a childwith another woman in 1935. that'd lend some credence to the possibilitythat muddy was less than faithful to his wife—or wives.
but we just don't know. most historians say muddy waters was marriedat least twice. some historians say three, including mabel. yet other historians say four times, includinga woman named sallie ann. during this time, most historians also agreemuddy waters had at least five children. again, maybe there's more we don't know about. maybe not. we don't know. so as you can probably guess, most of thepersonal life between muddy and his wife that
we see in cadillac records was made up forthe film. of what we do know, though, the movie correctlyhas a woman named geneva as muddy's wife. we do know that geneva wade was one of muddy'swives. in the film she's portrayed by the talentedgabrielle union. we also know that, even if muddy had otherwives before geneva, she was the longest. speaking of love and personal lives, in themovie we see a budding romance between adrien brody's version of len chess and beyonce knowles'character, etta james. all of that is made up for the film. in fact, len's son, marshall, was asked aboutthe connection between len and etta we saw
the interviewer asked if len and his wife,revetta chess, really made up after the love affair between len and etta. marshall's response was to roll his eyes andexplain that no, they didn't make up—because there was no affair. so there was no need to make up. in a different interview, marshall explainedmore. apparently marshall had asked the real ettajames himself. she said that len had kissed her once…onthe cheek. as the movie continues to introduce artists,we meet yet another real character.
this is mos def's version of chuck berry,who's new style of music has taken over as the hip new thing. periodically we see muddy asking len for money,implying muddy isn't the rich rock star chuck berry is. i feel as if i should give a blanket statementthat the details in this movie are all made up—however, as we've seen with some of theother facts, the gist is there. the truth is that muddy waters never mademuch money off of his music. he made enough to live a comfortable life,but he was never crazy rich like many of the popular musicians are these days.
by comparison, the real chuck berry passedaway only a couple months ago on march 18th, 2017. when he did, he had an estimated net worthof about $19 million. still hardly the crazy rich like many othermusicians these days, but certainly enough to live a good life. oh, and for a brief moment in the film wesee keith richards and the rolling stones come to chess records. they say they named their band after one ofmuddy's songs. that's true.
the rolling stones were formed when keithrichards and mick jagger formed a bond over their shared love of muddy waters and chuckberry records. in their early days, they played covers ofmuddy, chuck and howlin' wolf. their name came about when one of the bandleaders, brian jones, was on the phone with a local newspaper. they asked for their band name, which thegroup hadn't even thought of yet, and in a hurry brian looked around his room. he saw a muddy waters record on the floorwith the track "rollin' stone" and the rest, as they say, is history.
back in the movie, there's a tragic momentwhen columbus short's version of little walter's life declines through alcohol abuse, endingin a very unnecessary fight. he manages to stumbles into gabrielle union'sversion of geneva's arms before dying. the specifics were fictionalized here, butthe general idea is pretty accurate. unfortunately, as the 1960s came around, littlewalter began to slip further and further into alcoholism. he did manage to tour in europe with the rollingstones in 1964, something the movie doesn't show, but that was the beginning of the endfor little walter's career. thanks to what many historians believe wasdue to his increasing addiction to alcohol,
little walter's talent just wasn't what itonce was. we don't know the specifics of what happenedexactly, but we know he was involved in a street fight in 1968. like the movie shows, it was this street fightthat would take his life as he succumbed to the head injuries he suffered during the fight. little walter was only 37 years old when hepassed. as the movie comes to an end, we see len chessselling off chess records. when he does, he drives away from the buildingand has a heart attack, dying in his car just feet away from the studio.
that's not true. the chess brothers did sell chess recordsto another record company called general recorded tape, or grt, for about $6.5 million dollarsalong with around 20,000 shares of grt stock. sadly, just a couple months later, len passedaway. even though phil was still alive, the lossof len was a massive blow to the record company. whether it was because of the new owners atgrt calling the shots, the passing of one of the driving forces behind chess recordsin len chess, or some combination of those two things, there was a significant declinein the quality of music being created at chess records after len's death.
within six years of len's passing, chess recordswas nearly defunct and grt was disassembling its assets and personnel. in august of 1975, the now-struggling grtwas going under as well and they sold off what they could of chess records to anothercompany called all platinum records. after this, the chess records building inchicago was sold and the new owners demolished the building, including a quarter of a millionrecords that were still inside. while the movie doesn't mention this at allsince it doesn't really include phil much, it was just a few months ago, on october 18th,2016 when phil chess passed away. as the movie comes to a close, we see a listof talented individuals from chess records
who are now in the rock and roll hall of fame. there's a total of seven listed: willie dixon,howlin' wolf, etta james, chuck berry, little walter, leonard chess and, of course, muddywaters. all of that is true. it's also true that phil chess, at least asof this recording, hasn't been inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame while his brotherlen was. maybe that's why the filmmakers decided tofocus more on len than phil. today, if you buy music from any of the greatmusicians who recorded on chess records, they'll be through the music corporation of america,or mca, as they hold the masters to the back
catalog from chess records. at the very end, the movie uses text on thescreen to explain what happened to the real people that the characters in the film werebased upon. and while those characters weren't entirelyrealistic in the movie, the text at the end is also a little iffy on its historical accuracy. like the movie says, muddy waters passed awayin 1983. april 30th, 1983 to be precise. and like the movie correctly states, that'sten years after geneva died. she passed away from cancer on march 15th,1973.
while we don't know if muddy was entirelyfaithful to geneva throughout his lifetime, they are laying beside each other for therest of time. i'll put a link to a photo of their tombstoneslaying side by side with each other in the show notes if you want to see them. as for howlin' wolf, he passed away on january10th, 1976. the movie claims that blues legend eric claptonpaid for his tombstone. that's something many historians agree with,and yet others debate. some say it was howlin' wolf's widow who paidfor it. so there's some debate about that.
there's not a lot of documentation about it,and it's not something eric clapton has come out to clarify. if he did do it, he did it in private andto honor the legend of chester arthur burnett—howlin' wolf's real name—an artist that eric claptonhad the honor of recording with early in his own blues career. even if eric clapton didn't, one thing weknow about the wolf was that even though he made a decent sum of money throughout hiscareer, he didn't live lavishly. instead, he was modest and chose to pay hisband well. according to the movie, etta james won a grammylifetime achievement award in 2002 and is
still performing throughout the world. that is not true. etta james did win a grammy lifetime achievementaward, but according to the grammy's official site it was in 2003, not 2002. so while i realize that awards often are forthe year before, this was a lifetime achievement award and it was given to etta in 2003. and while it was accurate when the movie wasreleased in 2008, as of this recording, etta james is no longer performing around the world. she died on january 20th, 2012, just fivedays before her 73rd birthday.
after this, the text on screen in the moviesays chuck berry was successful in suing the beach boys for their song, surfin' usa, claimingit ripped off of chuck berry's song sweet little sixteen. that is very true. in a recent interview, the beach boys' singerbrian wilson admitted, "i just took sweet little sixteen and rewrote it into somethingof our own." as a result of the lawsuit, chuck berry gotwriting credit and royalties. oh, and something the movie doesn't mentionis that chuck berry's publisher also sued the beatles for ripping off one of chuck'ssongs, you can't catch me in the beatles'
tune, come together. john lennon agreed to settle out of courtfor that one. that's not the last lawsuit. the final bit of text on screen in cadillacrecords says that wille [sic] dixon sued led zeppelin for ripping off one of his songs. as a quick little side note here, the moviehas a typo—they spell his name wille instead of willie. but that bit about led zeppelin plagiarizingone of willie dixon's songs is true. the song from led zeppelin was whole lottalove, which was released in 1969.
seven years earlier, willie dixon had writtenthe lyrics to a song that muddy waters sang called you need love. for copyright reasons of course, i can't includethose here but if you check out the lyrics to those two songs, you'll see they're quitesimilar. close enough that dixon won the case and theled zeppelin song now has to have willie dixon included in the credits for writing the song. despite this, according to willie's daughter,shirley, he never saw much monetary gain. according to shirley, "there was no significantmoney to willie from record sales. he went to his grave feeling that he was notrepresented properly."
this episode of based on a true story waswritten and produced by me, dan lefebvre. to learn more about the history of chess records,i'd recommend the book spinning blues into gold: the chess brothers and the legendarychess records by nadine cohodas. or to learn more about mckinley morganfield,check out can't be satisfied: the life and times of muddy waters by robert gordon. and of course, go hop on youtube and do asearch for muddy waters, howlin' wolf, etta james, little walter, chuck berry and allof the amazingly talented musicians who inspired many of today's musicians. check out their music and maybe even pickup some of their albums.
while many of the artists aren't alive themselvesanymore, their families are. i'll make sure to put a link to those booksand much more in the show notes over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com. before we get to the two truths and a liegame, let's share another 5-star review from itunes. this one comes from ka_excaliber who says: "i love movies, and movies based on true storiesare definitely in my wheelhouse. dan's show is very well produced and informative. i love hearing some of the (often crazier)stories that inspired some of my favorite movies (catch me if you can is ridiculous).
i also love that the show is a perfect lengthfor my 20-30 minute commute, so i can squeeze a couple of episodes in every day. great work dan, keep it up!" thanks so much ka_excaliber! i know this is a bit off topic, but i'm ahuge king arthur fan…in fact, not many people know this, but one of the first websites iever built just for the fun of it was called camelotonline.net and the entire thing wasa bunch of stories i wrote about king arthur and his knights. anyway, that was over 15 years ago and solong ago that i used frames to build the site
because it was the thing to do—eek! i know. i probably used tables, too, but i can't rememberand the internet archive won't pull up the site for me because, well, no modern browseruses frames. if you're a web designer or developer youknow what i'm talking about. anyway, side track there. thank you so much for the kind review ka_excaliber! there are some crazy stories, aren't there? i love being able to tell those stories andit means the world to me that you're enjoying
the show as much as i'm enjoying making it. and thank you, dear listener, for taking thetime to find and listen to the based on a true story podcast, too! if you want to leave a 5-star review for meto read in a future episode, hop over to itunes! finally, it's time for the answer to our twotruths and a lie game from the beginning of the episode! as a refresher, are the two truths and onelie: 1. did you find out which one is a lie?
the lie is… #3. while the movie makes it seem like len chesswas the primary guy behind the business end of chess records, he had a brother named philwho was just as involved. and now i have a question for you. who is your favorite blues artist? is it one of the musicians we've talked abouton this show? or is it someone else? the next time you're on facebook, why notjoin the based on a true story podcast facebook group and post your favorite blues artists!
you can find the group by searching for basedon a true story podcast on facebook, or if you're not on facebook you can find the showon instagram @basedonatruestorypodcast or you can find me directly on twitter @danlefeb. or maybe you're not a fan of social media—youcan shoot me a good old fashion email at dan@basedonatruestorypodcast.com. thanks so much for listening, and i'll chatwith you again really soon!
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