RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World

2017 • 102 minutes

About this movie

This revelatory documentary brings to light the profound and overlooked influence of Indigenous people on popular music in North America. Focusing on music icons like Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Taboo (The Black Eyed Peas), Charley Patton, Mildred Bailey, Jesse Ed Davis, Robbie Robertson, and Randy Castillo, RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World shows how these pioneering Native American musicians helped shape the soundtracks of our lives.

The idea for RUMBLE came about when guitarist Stevie Salas, an Apache Indian and one of the film's Executive Producers, realized that no one outside of the music business knew about the profound contribution of these Native musicians. Renewed attention to this missing chapter in the history of American music led to the publishing of Brian Wright-McLeod’s The Encyclopedia of Native Music, an exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and eventually this documentary.

Winner of a Special Jury Award for Masterful Storytelling at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and the Audience Award and Best Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs, RUMBLE features interviews with musicians, historians, and experts including: Buddy Guy, Steven Van Zandt, Tony Bennett, Taj Mahal, Martin Scorsese, Stevie Salas, Quincy Jones, John Trudell, Steven Tyler, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Monk Boudreaux, George Clinton, Jackson Browne, Joy Harjo, Iggy Pop, Wayne Kramer (MC5), Marky Ramone (The Ramones), Pura Fe Crescioni (Ulali), Robert Trujillo (Metallica), Slash (Guns ‘N’ Roses), Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Pat Vegas (Redbone), Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys), and Taylor Hawkins (The Foo Fighters).

Ratings and reviews

I've been waiting to see this for nearly a year, and it did not disappoint! Reaching back even further than Link Wray, and grasping the very heart of the force that drives the music, Rumble tells the story not only how music shapes lives, but how the lives of the musician shaped the music. Drawing a clear line back through history, and showing the many branches of the tree that is musical genres, we can see through the eyes of current artists, and the stories of those who've past on, that the roots hold strong, and though we may lose leaves from time to time, the tree still grows.

This is an incredible amount of music history. Who knew! Legends of R&B, Rock, Jazz, Hip Hop all contribute to this documentary. So good I have to buy it now.

This movie rocks. literally. An in depth look at native american contributions to rock and roll music and the concept is beautifully illustrated. I hope this becomes a series and they feature even more native american artists who rock.