Jan. 28 - Sunday Movie: 1:00pm at the BCP Theater - Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (USA - 2017)

[NewsLady]

"The Clubhouse" in the BCP Hex Room is before and during our movies.  Food and drinks - including popcorn - are available for purchase.   
------------------------------
We don't charge admission, but we do ask for donations to support BCP and the Film Club program. 

• February 4  - Everything is Illuminated (USA - 2005) 
• February 11 - Amargosa (USA - 2000)
• February 18 - Honeydripper (USA - 2008)
• February 23 - No Movie (Jazz & Blues Festival at the feria)

---------------------------------- 

This Sunday, January 28 @ 1:00pm - Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (USA - 2017)   1 hour, 43 minutes

Ratings:  7.9 - IMDB,  89% - Rotten Tomatoes,  3/4 - Roger Ebert 

This documentary film was named after "Rumble" a simple but powerful 1958 rock & roll instrumental by Link Wray, an East Coast rock & roll musician who was a Shawnee Indian.  It was one of the first records to use "power chords" which later became a staple of many of the hard rock styles.  At the time the record was released, I was nearing the end of my sophomore year in high school in Chicago, and liked Rumble the first time I heard it.  I never knew until I read about this documentary that Wray was a Native American.  The record was released in April, 1958, and climbed to #16 that summer.  According to Wikipedia, it had a major influence on many later rock and roll stars. 

If you never liked rock and roll, you probably won't enjoy this documentary.  In my case, even though I was an usher for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when the 45RPM single "Rumble" was released, I have enjoyed a very wide range of music most of my life,  from classical to pop to rock & roll and even.

From The Los Angeles Times: 

Link Wray's 1958 single "Rumble," a guitar-driven instrumental, was banned from key U.S. radio markets for fear that its loping, wordless swagger would encourage juvenile delinquency. [Plus the fact the "rumble" was slang for gang fights.] The grab-you-by-the-solar-plexus track has galvanized generations of rock and punk musicians. It's also a potent entry point for Catherine Bainbridge's new documentary, a vibrant survey of a criminally overlooked aspect of American popular music: the crucial contributions of Native Americans.

Wray was a North Carolina Shawnee with childhood memories of Ku Klux Klan terror. A conflicted combination of artistic expression and the need to hide is at the core of Bainbridge's film. While celebrating the music and ethnic heritage of Wray and nine other performers, she and co-director Alfonso Maiorana show that many American Indians chose to identify as African or Mexican.

Not every chapter in the loosely organized film delivers the punch of its eye-opening early sequences, which explore the infusion of indigenous rhythms into the blues of former slaves. But there are compelling mini-portraits of stars — Jimi Hendrix, Robbie Robertson — as well as figures who aren't household names but whose influence runs deep, among them Delta bluesman Charley Patton and jazz singer Mildred Bailey.

With its rich range of genres, personalities (including the late great activist-musician John Trudell) and political history, "Rumble" could easily fill an extended series. Inevitably cursory, it's nonetheless a fascinating introduction to the ways that core components of Americana wouldn't be eradicated. Or silenced.

Link to trailer 


 

 

Note:  If you want to be added to - or removed from - our email list, reply to BoqueteFilmClub@gmail.com.) 
 

--

David van Harn