“They toned it down for the recordings.” First on board was a Chicago guitarist named Billy Flynn who worships Chuck Berry but was also versatile enough to channel Muddy Waters’s style and handle the guitar parts during the Etta James sessions. The Chess artists and their bands “were more raucous in the clubs,” Jordan says. Jordan’s choice of guitarists was especially key to the film since he and Martin had agreed from the start that Cadillac Records would have a big guitar sound-one that was more raw and live than the riffs and licks played on the Chess originals but still authentic to the period.
He tapped SNL music director Leon Pendarvis for some of that greasy 60s r&b organ for the Etta James recordings, and Letterman bassist Will Lee to do the voices of each and every one of the Beach Boys on a scene featuring “Surfin’ U.S.A.”
By Eric Liebowitz/Sony BMG Films.In my feature about the making of *Cadillac Records,* director and screenwriter Darnell Martin’s film about the founders and stars of Chicago’s Chess Records, drummer and record producer Steve Jordan tells me that, as the film’s music director, he had to put together a group of musicians who “really know the genre inside out-live it, breathe it-so that when you’re playing with them, they’re not just imitating, they’re swinging.” And that meant that with the exception of Jordan and former Canned Heat bassist and Tom Waits session regular Larry “The Mole” Taylor, who comprised the core rhythm section for the recording sessions-“If you don’t have the Mole, you don’t have the real deal,” Jordan told me-different musicians were called upon to channel specific Chess artists and even eras.įor example, Fabulous Thunderbird front man and blues harp virtuoso Kim Wilson was hired because, in Jordan’s opinion, he comes closest to rocking Little Walter’s sound Chicago pianist Barrelhouse Chuck (real name: Charles Goering) was brought on board because he is fluent in the rollicking keyboard styles of Otis Spann and Johnnie Johnson, respectively the pianists for Muddy Waters’s and Chuck Berry’s original bands.Meanwhile, Jordan, who played drums for the Saturday Night Live band during the 70s and was the first drummer in the Paul Shaffer–led band that played on the NBC version of David Letterman’s late-night talk show, turned to veterans of each of those outfits for help.
Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters and Columbus Short as Little Walter.
0 kommentar(er)
