RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked The World

Synopsis

In recent years, a string of nonfiction films have brought long-underappreciated and professionally marginalized creators of American popular music into the spotlight, from the Los Angeles-based group of session players featured in The Wrecking Crew (2008) to the backup singers largely responsible for the Motown sound and so lovingly documented in 20 Feet from Stardom (2013). Alfonso Maiorana and Catherine Bainbridge’s recent festival hit Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World is perhaps the most revelatory of the bunch, writing a much-needed chapter in the annals of a cultural form that has often been whitewashed by historians. Taking a cue from the Native American rock and roll guitarist Link Wray (who, born to Shawnee parents, gained fame for his 1958 instrumental single “Rumble”), this documentary is like a soul-shattering power-chord blast, sure to floor audiences and send them on a hunt for the legendary recordings of musicians like Delta blues great Charley Patton and electric guitarist Jimi Hendrix. However, besides memorializing the many accomplishments of these and other artists, Maiorana and Bainbridge open up the contextual scope of their film to examine the U.S. government’s shameful campaigns to erase indigenous cultures as well as the solidarity between African Americans and Native Americans that was needed in order to survive and even thrive in a historically racist industry.