Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World movie review (2017)

He’s the launching pad for this movie about Native Americans (here called “Indians” for reasons that become clearer as the movie goes on) and their influence not just on rock but on American music. As is pointed out more than once, the music of the Shawnee, the Choctaw, the Mohawk, the Apache, and so many other tribes, is in a very real sense the first American music. Race-mixing between blacks and Indians resulted in a cultural consciousness that enabled a melding of African music and Indian. Among other things, the movie makes a convincing case that the Indian tradition was one explicitly drawn upon by Charlie Patton, one of the giants of Delta Blues.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The movie, directed by Catherine Bainbridge with Alfonso Maiorana, begins with Wray. And the section devoted to him is actually the weakest one in the movie. As if wanting to convince the viewer as to its authoritativeness, it mixes scintillating archival footage of the badass guitarist, from clean-cut-with-pomaded-hair ‘50s incarnation to leather-clad ‘70s Gibson SG mangler with a parade of talking heads talking about how significant “Rumble” was. I enjoy hearing from Steven Van Zandt, the MC5’s Wayne Kramer, Slash, music critic David Fricke et. al. as much as the next enthusiast, but after a while I’m thinking, “Instead of talking so much about ‘Rumble,’ how about letting us actually HEAR more of it?”

It’s also peculiar that the movie drops Wray pretty much right after giving us the news that “Rumble” was banned from a host of radio stations, a signal accomplishment for an instrumental. “The theme song of juvenile delinquency,” Van Zandt says, delightedly. Wray’s subsequent career was as action-packed and eccentric as any rock figure you can name, and it doesn’t get played out here. Maybe they’re saving it for a separate documentary.

But the stories the film tells after Wray’s are mostly well-done and frequently moving mini-movies. A section in New Orleans, featuring local hero Monk Boudreaux and several members of the Neville Brothers, is a superb précis of the roots of that region’s infectious music. Buffy Sainte Marie speaks of becoming a musician by happenstance, and suffering under a blacklist she wasn’t even explicitly aware of for almost twenty years. Robbie Robertson recount his procession from journeyman teen guitarist to Bob Dylan’s wingman during his controversial switch from folk to rock. “Be proud you’re an Indian but be careful who you tell,” he recalls his people advising him. The movie also examines the Indian roots in the work of Mildred Bailey, a pioneer for female jazz singers and a profound influence on some male superstars who came after her, one of whom, Tony Bennett, appears in an interview.

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