Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
Native American Heritage
Sometimes, it’s nice to watch a PBS-style documentary where influential people sit around and talk about an important thing. In this case, the thing being talked about is Native American peoples’ contribution to rock and/or roll. The people doing the talking are Native American rock legends, descendants of Native American rock legends, Steven van Zandt (in glorious attire), Martin Scorsese, George Clinton, Jackson Browne, and many more.
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017)is a tight documentary that jumps around in time to give you an overview of Native American’s influence on modern culture. The film does a fantastic job of highlighting how deep the roots run and how much our musical culture owes them, and it does this by jumping back and forth in history to tie threads from the present to the past to the far past.
Link Wray, a Shawnee, takes early center stage. The eponymous song, Rumble, notably is the only instrumental song ever to be banned on the radio for fear it would incite gang violence. Later in the film, when Johnny Cash attempts to get more exposure for his album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, the trend of resistance to Native American culture seeping into the mainstream will be pretty evident.
The film jumps back to Charley Patton, a pioneer of delta blues, of whom we know very little. It threads his ancient recordings of the blues with new recordings of old native songs, giving us insight into the way that the music morphed and became what we know it as today.
Jumping forward, we’re introduced to Mildred Bailey, an influential jazz vocalist who influenced countless musicians over the next century. Her mother was a member of the Coeur d’Alene people (from near present-day Idaho.) Watching Tony Bennett explain that Bailey was the only musician he listened to for a significant portion of his life might make you wonder why you haven’t heard of her, assuming you haven’t heard of her.
There’s something incredibly gratifying about watching people sit around and talk about a shared moment. Watching musicians like Iggy Pop, Tony Bennett, or Buddy Guy talk about where they were when Rumble hit the airwaves, and the effect it had on them scratches an itch; like any itch, it’s hard to pin down what the itch is: a lament for the lost days of monoculture? The satisfaction of seeing game recognize game? The joy of seeing vindication on a large stage?
In weaker moments, Rumble occasionally gets so swept up in all the great music influenced by Native Americans that it forgets to circle back to Native Americans. It seems appropriate in a metatextual sense, given America’s relationship to the original inhabitants of the land we now live on. At its best, Rumble will open your eyes to how cultural roots wind their way forward in history and gradually influence the zeitgeist. Roots waiting to be discovered by those of us willing to dig. The film might inspire you to learn more about the Choctaw, Muscogee, Apache, Tuscarora, Mohawk, Cherokee, Coeur d’Alene, Cree, Pima, Lakota Sioux, Comanche, or any of the other nations whose descendants are responsible for the music we still listen to today.
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
Directed by Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana
2017
103 minutes
English
Recommended way to watch (at time of publication): Currently available on Netflix