Etta James talks about movie 'Cadillac Records'
03:02 PM PST on Wednesday, December 3, 2008
By VANESSA FRANKO
The Press-Enterprise
Etta James is in her twenties, blonde and recording "At Last" all over again--at least on the big screen.
Beyonce portrays the vocal legend and Riverside resident in "Cadillac Records," a film about the rhythm & blues revolution and the stars of Chess Records, a record label that helped launch the music into the mainstream. Beyonce also tackles some of James' best-known songs in the movie, which opens Friday.
Perhaps the toughest critic she has faced is James, a movie-lover who said in a telephone interview this week she can complain about anything.
"I never like anything that's done on me," she said.
But James, 70, attended the premiere in Los Angeles last week and gave Beyonce a raving thumbs up.
"She did a good job. I just think I'm really blessed that she did this movie and she did it like she did," she said.
James noted that "she wasn't a brat like I've been," she said, laughing.
The singer was also impressed with Beyonce's research for the film.
"She didn't know me from Adam's housecat," James said, explaining that she didn't pal around with Beyonce or spend time with her while she was working on the movie.
"She knew how to do it because she read that book," James said.
James' autobiography "Rage to Survive," was released in 1995 that details her life story, from not knowing her father to her music career to how she escaped her drug addiction.
The singer's life experiences can be heard in her music, which has run the gamut from blues to jazz to soul to pop throughout more than five decades of performing.
"Etta James is a pillar," said Karen M. Wilson, assistant director of the Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts at UC Riverside who has studied and performed the blues. "She sets a high bar. She represents I think one of the finest voices of her time and she's still wailing."
Wilson listened to the "Cadillac Records" soundtrack and said that Beyonce's performances tell the truth, a stone in the genre.
"Her voice is full and she is musical and clearly she is strong. What is missing is the cut and pain of Etta James' life. Really, that is Etta James truth - but that truth took the song to a different place. We get closest in the cut, 'I'd Rather Be Blind,'" Wilson said.
She said other high points on the film's soundtrack included Buddy Guy, Eamonn Walker (who plays Howlin' Wolf in the film), Little Walter and Olu Dara with his son, Nas. She particularly enjoyed with the latter's "ubiquitous and wonderful historical treatise 'Bridging the Gap.'" She also said Mos Def, who plays Chuck Berry in the film, was a nice surprise.
James said she loved how the film incorporated Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf and the music.
However, she said there were some inconsistencies in the film. James said she and Chess were never linked romantically like they are in the film. She also noted that details such as Chess sending her to detox and how he made sure she would always have her Los Angeles home were omitted.
"I can pick the thing apart, but I wouldn't pick it apart because it was a great movie, a great movie," she said.
James enjoyed it so much that she wants to see it again this weekend.
"They said they're going to get me a DVD. I'm just going to look at it until it just melts off the screen," she said
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Although she said Beyoncé deserved to be "whipped" during a show in Seattle last month, "At Last" singer Etta James now says she was just trying to be funny.
The firestorm that greeted a recording of James dissing Beyoncé and saying unkind things about president Obama subsided somewhat on Friday (February 6), when the New York Daily News reported that James — seemingly upset that B had sung her signature song, "At Last," at Obama's inauguration last month — said she was joking around when she claimed she "can't stand" the "Single Ladies" singer.
"I didn't really mean anything," the notoriously cantankerous James told the tabloid about her January 28 screed, noting that she was a bit upset about not being asked to sing her signature song at the inauguration. "Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude. ... That's probably what went into it.
"Nobody was getting mad at me in Seattle," she added. "They were all laughing, and it was funny."
In fact, on a tape of the rant that surfaced online, the audience does appear to be egging James on, clapping and hooting at her salty monologue. [b]She said she was feeling "left out of something that was basically mine, that I had done every time you look around." The song, written in 1941, was first recorded by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and then by Nat King Cole in 1957, but is best known for James' 1961 cover.
On Friday, a spokesperson for Beyoncé had no comment on the situation.
[B]James reportedly told the paper that her broadside did not come from a "vicious place," but when asked if she thought she could outsing Beyoncé — who portrayed James in "Cadillac Records" — the 71-year-old legend offered, "I think so. That's a shame to say that."
She also hoped that Obama would not take her jibes about his "big ears" and him not being "my president," personally, explaining, "He's got other stuff [to worry about] besides Etta James."
She noted that she "always thought he was handsome and he was cool," and that her joke "might be horrible. The president might not ever like me in life."
An anonymous White House insider reportedly told Chicago Sun-Times gossip columnist Bill Zwecker, "It never crossed anyone's mind that there was anything inappropriate about Beyoncé singing that song. ... First of all, the message of the song was so perfect. Beyoncé sang it in the ['Cadillac Records'] film, and I don't think the people organizing that event even knew Etta was still performing. ... I'm sure some of the younger people involved didn't even know she is still alive!"
James had previously been supportive of Beyoncé, who earned praise for her warts-and-all portrayal of the singer in "Records." At the rehearsals for his annual Pre-Grammy Gala on Thursday, legendary music mogul Clive Davis told MTV News said he had not heard James' remarks, but that he didn't take the alleged rift too seriously.
"I know that last year when I introduced Leona Lewis to Whitney Houston there was a sense of visible awe," Davis said of the relationship between new stars and veterans. "It was not, 'I'm gonna show a past generation [up].' I'm not saying it was a lovefest, but back in the day ... they could all be great, but they competed with each other. But I don't think it's indigenous to artists. I don't view it as a problem."