- Title: Cadillac Records (Official Soundtrack)
The new film Cadillac Records is based on real events of the music scene in the 1950’s and 60’s involving the influential Chicago label Chess Records. Hitting stores just days before the film, the soundtrack is available in both as single-disc and a deluxe two-disc version.
Included on both are Beyonce singing “At Last,” “Once in a Lifetime,” and “I’d Rather Go Blind” (the first of which is by far the best of the three recordings). Jeffrey Wright belts out “I’m a Man” and “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man,” and Mos Def sings “Nadine” and let’s us know there’s “No Particular Place to Go.” Rounding out the collection are “6 O’Clock Blues” sung by Solange, Columbus Short singing “My Babe,” and “The Sound” by Mary Mary.
The second disc, available only on the deluxe edition contains 13 more tracks. Beyonce returns for “Trust in Me” and “All I Could Do Was Cry.” Jeffrey Wright gives us “I Can’t Be Satisfied” and “Country Blues,” and Mos Def sings “Maybeliene,” “Come On,” and “Promised Land.” Also included here are “Forty Days and Forty Nights’ by Buddy Guy, “Juke” by Soul Seven and Kim Wilson, “Smokestack Lightning’” by Eamon Walker, and Elvis Pressley gives us his version of “My Babe.”
As a soundtrack to a biopic Cadillac Records holds up all right, though (like most music biopics) fans of the original music should already have the original recordings of these songs. I’m sure the high percentage of songs by Beyonce and Mos Def (a combined 10 of the overall 26) is done in hopes of bringing in a younger audience (though it is interesting it’s being released only two weeks after Beyonce’s latest album hit stores; how much Beyonce is enough?). It’s a pleasant enough listen, but there’s nothing here which demands picking it up.