'Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World'

Last week I went to see the documentary film, 'Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World' at the Curzon Soho as part of the Doc'n'Roll Film Festival. I'd heard a lot about it and wanted to see it.

It tells the story of the influence of Native Americans and their music on blues, jazz and rock music and virtually all modern music. It was fascinating to hear about the old bluesmen and jazz women who were Native American or of part native heritage and how their styles were reminiscent of the tribal music of their heritage. I can't remember who said it but someone mentioned that in some states in the south of America Native Americans weren't allowed drums to stop them communicating but they played guitars using the same beats and timing as they would for a drum. Pure Fe played an old jazz record and talked us through the 'native' elements.

It was also nice to see Buffy Sainte-Marie indirectly weaved through the film, seeing the Neville Brothers (who she's sung with), Ulali (who have provided backing vocals for Buffy) and Buffy's old friend Taj Mahal as well as others. There's a nice interview with Buffy with her sitting in front of one of her digital paintings ('Elder Brother'). There was also a lot of talk about Jesse Ed Davis who played guitar for so many bands, including on one of Buffy's albums.

The title of the film comes from Link Wray's classic song 'Rumble' and features contributions from all sorts of people. It was lovely to hear Redbone again and see a clip of them on an American TV show in full regalia. The trailer is below to give to an idea.

The final song in the film before the credits belongs to Buffy Sainte-Marie with some footage of her singing 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee' at a gig spliced with film of the current Standing Rock protests. 

I'm really pleased that I've finally seen this film, it really is fascinating and I learned so much. There are many worse ways to spend a couple of hours.