Apr 9
International Film Forum: RUMBLE: THE INDIANS WHO ROCKED THE WORLD
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World (Catherine Bainbridge with Alfonso Maiorano, 2017, Canada, 103 min.) – introduced by Fred Hagstom and Andy Flory
“Catherine Bainbridge’s Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World earns respect as much for its achievement as its ambition, while offering a celebratory examination of the often-underappreciated role played in the development of American popular music by singers, musicians, and songwriters of Native American ancestry. The film is structured more or less as a series of individual portraits of 10 significant artists, ranging from Delta blues great Charley Patton to iconic electric guitarist Jimi Hendrix (who was part Cherokee) to living legend Robbie Robertson. […] The title comes from ‘Rumble,”’ the smash hit 1958 instrumental single by Link Wray (born in New Carolina to Shawnee parents) driven by innovative power chord riffs that would later influence Iggy Pop, Pete Townshend, and hosts of other rock, pop, and heavy-metal masters. Taj Mahal, one of the film’s several on-camera interviewees, recalls that the song actually made him “levitate out of bed about four feet” the first time he heard it on the radio. Indeed, ‘Rumble’ was banned from the airwaves in many U.S. markets because, as Stevie Van Zandt gleefully notes, the scary swagger it conveyed made it sound like ‘a theme song for juvenile delinquency.’” (Joe Leydon, Variety)