[Harp-L] The fiasco formerly known as Cadillac Records

[InfamousOGI@xxxxxxx]

Hi Sonny Hudson here. I 've  stayed  unusually quiet on the  list for a long 
time but this really irks me. I moved to Chicago in the winter  of 1970 as a 
16 year old runaway. Along the way I met and was befriended by  blues musicians 
on the South Side who took pity on my naivete and lack of fear  of an often 
harsh environment. I  was a tough street kid and I survived  
violence,crime,poverty there. There are people portrayed in the movie (and  excluded from it) 
that I knew. This movie,while exposing a new generation to the  genesis of most 
modern music has done history an injustice. The true story is a  much more 
interesting "read" than this tripe.
      I went to see this movie with my  girlfriend and when she saw me with 
tears in my eyes at the end,she was  puzzled.She thought that it was a good 
movie. To trivialize what made these men  and women tick, downplay the impetus 
for them to express themselves,and to  distort chonological events is a sin.We 
are sensitized to these distortions,so  to us it is like saying Poland dropped 
the hydrogen bomb on Pearl Harbor in  1949.
           This  "romanticizing" of the facts is a funny thing.The reality is 
that most of these  guys played not in big clubs ,but small neighborhood 
dives. They were no  different than guys in NYC. On any given night during the 
heyday of NYC blues  activity,you could see me as the house band in Manny's Car 
Wash,Frankie Paris  holding court in Dan Lynch's,Bill SimsJr. (my former 
partner/co leader) at  Wonderland, our Rob Paparozzi and his incredible Hudson River 
Rats somewhere  else. Some of us "made it" and others fell by the 
wayside.Some like the  powerhouse Frankie Paris played until their hearts gave out. Most  
fell into obscurity after Giuliani and Bloomburg and 9/ 11 hacked away at  
NYC's blues clubs.
     In the end, just as Chess musicians made their  deals with the devil 
Leonard in order to shine, this movie ,tainted as it is may  cause an interest 
and resurgence in the music we all so identify with. All we  can do is remember 
and enjoy those who came before us and contribute to the  communal gumbo know 
as the Blues. I wish you all a very safe,prosperous and  joyous holiday 
season. Please give what you can to those who are less fortunate  than you.
 
                                                  Sonny Hudson
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