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Chess Records gets crowned
Some MTV-generation kids soon will be marveling at Beyonce's new, hip, blonde beehive 'doo song and singing her new song, "At Last."
Only, of course, this blonde Beyonce is merely the modern diva portraying that queen of 1950s/'60s blues, Etta James, in the new movie "Cadillac Records."
The film tells the story of Chess Records and such music legends as Muddy Waters (played by Jeffrey Wright), Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer), Chuck Berry (Mos Def), Howlin' Wolf (Eamonn Walker) and others. (The film gets its title because Chess founder Leonard Chess liked to give his artists Cadillac cars).
While the film's stars perform the music on the official soundtrack, the real deal can be found on the new collection "Best of Chess: Original Versions of Songs in Cadillac Records." Included are such classics as Dixon's "(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man," Waters' "I Can't Be Satisfied" and Etta's sublime torch song.
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YouTube's Top 10
Admit it -- you hope that one day your cute/goofy/funny/sexy homemade video will become a viral hit on YouTube.
To check out the competition, visit readwriteweb.com for a list of the top 10 YouTube videos of all time, ranked by number of hits.
Half of the vids are professional clips from big-name music artists such as Beyonce and Shakira's "Beautiful Liar," Akon's "Don't Matter," My Chemical Romance's "Famous Last Words" and Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend."
Number one (spoiler alert!) is "Evolution of Dance by comedian Judson Laipply, with 55.8 million views.
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In 1993, a bunch of Staten Island 20-somethings put a kung fu drop kick on the world of hip-hop.
Led by RZA, a chess-playing rapper and producer, the Wu-Tang Clan was more a collective than a cohesive working group.
But the Wu folk -- RZA, Method Man, Ghostface Killah, Ol' Dirty Bastard and others -- kept hip-hop off-balance (and sometimes each other) with a mix of blue-collar beats, ghostly pianos and other experimental instrumentation, both crass and savvy commercialization (including a clothing line) and street-wise rhymes littered with martial arts mythology.
A new DVD, "Wu -- The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan," focuses on the brotherhood's early days, but also features a lament for the fractured genius of the late, great Ol' Dirty.
-- Rick de Yampert, Entertainment Writer
