In 1958, a Shawnee guitarist named Link Wray released a song that changed music forever. Its distorted power chords were so ragged and foreboding that the song was banned from radio despite being an instrumental. But it inspired a who’s who of rock legends, including Bob Dylan, Jimmy Page and Iggy Pop. Last year, the song was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
So it’s no surprise that a new documentary about Native Americans in rock took the song’s name as its own: “Rumble.”
Released in 2017 by filmmakers Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana, “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World” will be screened Wednesday at Auburn Public Theater. The film features interviews with Native American musicians like Robbie Robertson (The Band) and Buffy Sainte-Marie, and covers pioneers like Wray, Jimi Hendrix (who was part Cherokee) and Jesse Ed Davis.
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