After backing up Muddy on his early recordings, Little Walter becomes a star in his own right, but his quick temper and loud manner often run him afoul of friends and the law. Waters' early recordings start moving up the R+B charts and receiving heavy play.Ĭhess treats his musicians like family - he buys them a Cadillac when they record their first hit record - although the line between business and personal sometimes causes conflict with his increasingly talented and successful stable of artists. Fascinated by the sound of the music - and eager to cash in on the record burgeoning record business - Chess arranges a recording session for Waters. The story of how the blues became popular and gave birth to rock and roll begins at a dingy bar on the rough South Side of Chicago in 1947, where an ambitious young Polish emigre, bar owner Leonard Chess (Academy Award-winner Adrien Brody), hires a talented but undisciplined blues combo that includes quiet and thoughtful guitar prodigy Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright) and impulsive and colorful harmonica player Little Walter (Columbus Short). In this tale of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in Chicago of the 1950s and 60s, the film follows the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's greatest musical legends. 'Cadillac Records' chronicles the rise of Chess Records and its recording artists.

Cadillac records