All language subtitles for Rumble.The.Indians.Who.Rocked.The.World.2017.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX].en

Subtitles by explosiveskull

One can't help but notice the rhythms of-or the
pulse that was here, that is here, been here.

The feel of Native American
is in a lot of rock 'n' roll.

A lot of R&B musicians and blues
musicians talked about having Native blood.

The one group that hasn't
really been investigated

in terms of their contribution
is the Native Americans.

It's interesting how much of the Native
American element just filters through.

The mixture of cultures; you never
know what's gonna come with it.

And from that sometimes it's very
interesting artistic things happen, you know?

From Charlie Patton to Link Wray;
Robbie Robertson invented the genre.

Jimi Hendrix, the best in his field, you
know; Jesse Ed Davis, everybody wanted him.

Well, that's interesting isn't it?

Our peoples were part of the origin story
of blues and jazz and rock of American music,

but we're left out of the story
consistently from the beginning.

Figuring out that these people were
Indians and then we started to ask ourselves

why didn't anyone else know that?

It's an American story.

It's a human story; don't break it apart.

Pay the respect that is due.

It was that-the sound of
that guitar is the key.

Link Wray and that aggression.

The sound of his guitar
embodied all my aspirations.

It was the sound of freedom.

Link Wray.

Oh, boy. I've wanted to
meet you for a long time.

There might not be a Who
were there no Link Wray;

there might not be a Jeff Beck
Group... were there no Link Wray.

There might not be a Led Zeppelin
if there were no Link Wray.

Pete Townsend thought Link Wray was one
of the great guitar players of all time,

that this guy had invented the power chord.

Pete made it new; he put more
colour on it, put more weight on it.

Turned it into I Can See For Miles.

♪ I was born down in the country
Down where the cotton grows ♪

This is Jim Pewter with, uh, Link and, uh,
Black River Swamp is, uh, really a nice tune.

You know that's about a place where
I was born, down in North Carolina.

- Oh, yeah?
- Yeah.

I'm from North Carolina.

And I'm out in the country of Dunn.

And Dunn's a real small place
but I lived in the country

in this place called Black River.

♪ There's a place
down in the country. ♪

♪ Where the pine
trees grow so tall ♪

And they struggled; they were very poor

and I'm sure he probably fished in the pond

to try to get food because,

um, you know it was-times
were really rough.

♪ Stretchin' across
Black River Swamp ♪

He's got Shawnee on there; Native American.

You didn't go around telling
everybody you were Native American;

everybody hid it because of the way
other people looked down on them.

Link said that he hid under the bed one day

because they could hear
the KKK coming through;

because, like all cowards,
they would come at night

and they would terrorize people
when they least expected it.

♪ I can hear them
bullfrogs croaking ♪

The Ku Klux Klan was after
anybody who wasn't white.

♪ In the blackness
of the night ♪

And if you were known to be an Indian,

uh, you were just as susceptible
as any African-American person.

My Shawnee mommy, she went out into the
fields and was preaching to the blacks

and to the Cherokee Indians
and poor whites saying,

"You keep your morals high;
believe in God." You know.

And me and my brothers
we were singing, you know,

Will The Circle Be Unbroken

and all those gospel songs
behind my mom you know,

when she was out there preaching.

I was, uh, taught by a black man called
Hambone who was raised up in the circus

and he could play everything, you know.

And, uh, he taught me how to play the
blues, you know, and I started off from there

and then I started paying bands,
you know, to let me sit in with them

so I could get better, you know.

Were there early, um,
rock 'n' roll influences?

I mean you were among some of the...

There was no rock 'n' roll then.

I was doing this hop at this record
hop in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 1957.

The kids were gathered around in this arena

and they were yelling for, uh, the stroll.

Link says, "I don't know a stroll."

I said, "I don't know a stroll."

And Doug said, "I know the beat behind one.

Ba-bow" And you
thi-you know.

So I said, "OK." Then I went like this.

And then my God, man, they're watching me.

You know. He said, "Bam!" I went.

It's in the middle of the night and the
radio's on and here comes this sound, you know,

that makes you levitate
out of bed about four feet.

What is he doing?

There's no sound like
that nowhere on the air.

It changed everything.

Rumble made an indelible mark on the whole
evolution of where rock 'n' roll was gonna go.

And then I found out that he was an Indian.

That was the rawest form
of the kind of guitar

that a lot of the guys that I listen to-

it's where it started. You know?

And it even still sounds better
when he does it. You know?

I was in the cafeteria and
on the university P.A. system

I heard "Bam, bam, bam;
domp, domp, domp, domp."

I said, "What? Whoa, what is that?"

Rumble had the power to push me
over the edge and it did help me say,

"Fuck it. I'm gonna be a musician."

I think Link Wray purely
loved rock 'n' roll and felt

pissed off and annoyed and disappointed

that in some ways because
he was Shawnee, half-Shawnee,

and his family had been treated so badly

he took that bitterness and created something
that was not reductive but proactive.

And the idea Rumble just from
a superficial, almost reactionary level

is like the fight, right?

But for me it means to
disrupt, to roar, to be active.

So Link Wray announced with the Rumble
that there was a shift happening in culture.

You know, this is not going to be the bop and
the stroll it's going to be the Rumble.

Here comes Link Wray with the
theme song of juvenile delinquency.

You know. "Hey, rumble."

I was surprised it got any airplay.

And to be honest I mean I'm
not surprised it was banned.

He is the only person who has
an instrumental, no words, banned

for fear it would incite
teenage gang violence.

It was the sound, the chord progressions;

that was the thing.

It was the way they didn't understand
the feedback; it was the groove.

It was-it was so many things
that turned people off.

You know, everybody can't be
Pat Boone. You know what I mean?

His influence was so immense.

Every musician in the
world loves Link Wray.

I don't know why the rest of the
world hasn't figured that out.

♪ Kick out the jams,
motherfucker! ♪

In the MC5, we would do these recording
sessions and the engineers would always say,

"Oh, it's all distorted, man.

You punks-aw, you're
playing the amp too loud."

And I'd say, "Yes, I want it
distorted; that's what I want."

"No, no; you want it clean like
at Motown so it goes 'chink'."

I said, "No, I want it
to go like Link Wray.

You know, I want that-that
fuzz; I want the distortion."

Link Wray's certainly one of the
architects of my sound and the MC5 sound,

and a thousand other rock
guitar players since then.

I mean, you know, if you trace-if
you connect the dots back, you know...

so you can trace heavy metal and punk
rock and all that back to The Clash

and The Ramones; uh, the New York
Dolls, The MC5 and a few others.

And then before that,
who was there, you know?

And he was one of the first that really
had a tone that pointed a way to the future.

Link Wray is huge on all
modern electric guitar players.

If they're saying he didn't
influence, uh, they're lying.

Thank you very much!

In the whole southeast area what we all know,
what we've heard through our own families,

is that back when first contact happened,

we had a very specific style of singing.

And you can hear the spirit
of some of the old music

before plantations and slavery
and so forth, and colonization.

People are really shocked when they hear
the traditional music of the southeast.

They're, like, "That's Indian music?
I thought that was African music."

The land of the southeast
itself informs the sound.

We hear the birds here.

We hear the water here, the
rivers, the canoe sounds.

And that informs what
comes out of our mouth.

All of American music that came from the south
was informed by our land and therefore by us.

A music by Native people presented
a threat, was seen as dangerous.

And people were arrested, singers and dancers
incarcerated for performing this music;

treaty-guaranteed rations
withheld from them.

The Federal government begins passing law
after law in an effort to control Native people

in every way that you can imagine.

They went after every part of our culture

so of course they're
gonna go after the music

because it's an integral
aspect of our culture.

Because back in that time, in those times,
everybody had a morning song to greet the day.

They were songs of ancestry;
they were songs of the old way.

They went after our culture.

It was genocide and they
wanted to erase every

cultural perception of reality that we had.

On December 29th, 1890,

the U.S. Army surrounded
a number of Ghost Dancers

at Wounded Knee and
slaughtered over three hundred,

mostly women and children, but also men

who were participating in the Ghost Dance.

And this is essentially
the beginning of the banning

of Native music in the United States.

When I hear stories about
Wovoka creating the Ghost Dance,

the dance that would make the Native Americans
invulnerable to the bullets of the white man

so that they could rise
up from the reservations

and kill off their oppressors;
they were that desperate.

Was what music the blues?

It might not have sounded like
it, but baby, that was the blues.

That was the blues.

Most people in America, what
little they have of Mardi Gras

is drunken white people on
Bourbon Street packed wall-to-wall

hollering at some woman
to show her tits. You know?

This doesn't have anything
to do with Mardi Gras.

If you want to witness and
participate in the real Mardi Gras,

you have to go to the the heart of
the ghetto; that's the staging area.

When my family came up from my home in
Louisiana, they migrated during the time when, uh,

you know, things was rough for the
Indians so they came to New Orleans

and they passed off as black
because they was dark-skinned.

And they never even talked about it;
they'd never mention it because, you know,

they were scared because they didn't
want to get sent to the reservation.

Big Chief! Big Chief!

Hey boy! What they say!

Mardi Gras more than a hell of a day.

But Mardi Gras morning when Indians come

we all gonna get together to have some fun.

♪ I'm gonna take 'em downtown! ♪

♪ Early in the mornin'! ♪

♪ I'm gonna take 'em downtown! ♪

Early in the mornin'!

Seeing the Indians at Carnival
was getting to know who I was.

That was the only time that
black men could put on feathers.

We're all a combination of indigenous
people and indigenous people of Africa.

It was a Muscogeeon
village through this area.

Our music is called Stomp Dance and
what you hear first is the calling,

a call and response

where the leader calls out
and then the men answer.

When you hear that up against blues,
rock, jazz, it's part of the origin.

Everybody in the neighbourhood,
everybody has grown up on this;

they've been doing this
a hundred and fifty years.

Basically they're in there masking
as black people in daily life.

Because the Indians were treated
even worse than the slaves.

When European settlers came here, they
first enslaved the Indians, lots of them.

And they figured out the best way to
do this is to ship the men elsewhere.

Being hunter-gatherer societies uh, they knew
how to escape and how to evade the raiders

and how to come back and fight. So,
you ship them into the Caribbean ships,

some of them to Africa,
keep the women here.

And then later on, bring in African slaves.

Ninety percent of the people in the ships coming
from Africa on some of those ships were men.

Who did they have children with?

And this is why eighty-five percent of
African-Americans who have been in this country

before the Civil War claim
Native American ancestry.

And all of them almost
say great-grandmother

on the mother's line.

And runaway slaves would be taken in

on different Indian reservations.

They're like, aw, come on, man, you know,
you can hang out with us; we'll hide you.

And the next thing you knew, there was
these little black Indians running around.

Everyone that was not white,

was classified as "coloured,"

so whether you were Indian
or black, you became coloured.

If you had ten percent African,
you're considered black.

You'd be ninety percent Indian,
but you're considered black.

Why? Well, because it prevents Native
Americans from making claims to the land...

and taking back what was stolen.

And if they claimed their land and
claimed Indian, they could be shot.

When the African poly
rhythms and a Native American,

four on the floor came together.

That was the beginning of
what became American music.

To me, I think of-of gumbo, which is
the quintessential New Orleans food.

When I was growing up, gumbo was
you put everything you had in a pot.

All that stuff together
makes this great meal.

I'm part Native American, part African by
way of Haiti, part French, part Italian,

and that's kind of what New Orleans
is, and it comes out so flavourful.

Giacomo Fina Ne is what
they say, Big Chief coming,

so tell them, better get out the way.

New Orleans, the home of the
strong, home of the brave,

so don't bother nobody with
a feather in their head.

They bring lightning in the
morning, they won't bow down,

tambourine rain is such a beautiful sound.

Uptown lightning it comes down

when my Chief on the street steps

the thunder all beneath his feet.

His suit can't be beat,

That child wild from the sun to the night

And when he opens such a beautiful sight.

♪ Here comes the end
Just let 'em through ♪

For me it was just a huge revelation
that the banjo is an African instrument.

The banjo for the first hundred years of
its existence was not a white instrument,

you know, at all, it was
a plantation instrument.

Our music is very much what you would hear.

It's-I've heard people
call it pre-blues.

And so it really sounds very much
like the roots of blues music.

♪ Baby, saddle my pony ♪

♪ Hitch up my black mare ♪

♪ Baby, saddle up my pony ♪

♪ Hitch up my black mare ♪

Blues buffs, blues scholars, although
they can't really agree on anything,

if they were forced into a room
and they had to identify, you know,

perhaps the most singularly important
blues guitarist, singer, songwriter,

the whole package, the greatest one that
ever was um, in the early 20th Century,

if you tried to convince them to come up with
that answer, they'd probably say Charley Patton.

He was the grandfather to
all of the Delta Blues guys.

No matter how rough those recordings
are or how hard it is to listen to,

there's nothing as immediate
as listening to that stuff.

It's like a bomb went off. I
mean, his sound is so guttural,

it sounds like what I imagine
that time must have felt like.

Like he's just, he's just getting it out.

You know, he's not even trying to make
it pretty. It's just as raw as it gets.

He was a profound influence on Bob Dylan,
Eric Clapton, Jack White, Bonnie Raitt,

the list goes on and on and on.

Charley Patton was an Indian.

And he was the baddest
mother-fucker in the world.

Howlin Wolf.

He was from the area of
the Mississippi Delta,

which is an area that
is rich in Blues history.

It's not far from the Choctaw country.

It's very likely that Charley
Patton was of Choctaw ancestry.

Charley Patton's family
has an oral tradition

of Native ancestry, of white ancestry,

Creole ancestry,
African-American ancestry.

All of those people made Patton who he was.

See, so when I hear this, it's
Indian music to me, you know.

And that rhythm...

I love Charley Patton,
his spirit and his music,

it just connects me right back

to where I come from, you know? I can
hear all those old traditional songs.

Do you hear it?

That's Indian music.

With a guitar, you know.

That's where it went, you know?
That's where traditional music went.

It went like this.

I hear it in the singing.

I hear it in the singing
and I hear it in the rhythm

because he plays the guitar like a drum.

It was illegal to own a drum
in plantation slavery America.

You could not own a drum.

Or you will be killed because a drum
was an insurrectionary instrument.

You could communicate to people, you could
organize people over distances for rebellion,

You know? So that's why Charley
Patton had to play drum on his guitar.

Patton was born during some of the worst
racial violence in the United States,

so one of the ways that
you could perhaps get away

from some of the worst
of the racial violence

was to be secure inside of a
world such as here at Dockery.

It was a place where people
could go and make money.

The Dockery Plantation offered people more

than they were getting in their
home communities in Mississippi.

And that's why Patton's family moved there

because they could have a
better life for themselves.

There were Choctaw folks that moved there;

there were African-American folks;

there were Europeans that worked there.

Charley Patton would have heard
a combination of influences

that led to the emergence
of his guitar playing style.

He was not very much into farm labour,

but you didn't have too
many other opportunities.

They would do gigs. It would be, you
know, Saturday night at somebody's house,

somebody's back porch. Play
all night, play for some drinks.

Maybe somebody would fry some fish.

After they got out of the
church, even the reverends

would go take their girls

and go to the juke joints, you
know, where they had sex and food

and gambling and all that stuff.

Back then, rich and poor had to go to
juke joints if they wanted to party.

Son House would say, you know, Patton
would throw the guitar up in the air

and catch it and, you
know, not miss a beat.

And just think, he's been working all week;

and you ain't heard nothing but
lightning and birds and wind.

And all of a sudden, you hear somebody go

And I mean, the hair's probably
standing up on the back of your neck.

He was doing Jimi Hendrix long before Jimi.

Charley Patton may have started
the whole showmanship thing.

But, you know, they had
to find their own identity;

they had to separate
themselves from the other guys.

I mean, there was probably a
lot of guys out there trying

to not have to work in the cotton
field, you know what I mean?

It's like, same as today, OK? We're all
trying to not work in that cotton field, right?

The big deal about Dockery is that
Charley was here for such a long time

that people came to him and he took
the time to teach them how to play.

He taught Pop Staples how
to play when he was a child.

Sun House was another one
that came here and played.

That Howlin' Wolf came here as a youngster.

A man came through the plantation
picking a guitar called Charley Patton,

and I liked his sound.

Every night that I'd get off
from work, I'd go to his house

and he'd learn me how to pick
the guitar. So I got good with it.

Wolf was the guy who basically took
Patton's music into the electric realm.

The Stones got Howlin' Wolf to come.

You can see Brian Jones' face.

He's just like, "Oh my God, we
actually pulled this scam off

and we got Howlin' Wolf to do this show."

Tell us something about him, Brian.

Well, when we first
started playing together

we started playing because we
wanted to play Rhythm and Blues

and Howlin' Wolf was
one of our greatest idols

and it's a great pleasure to find
he's been booked on this show tonight.

So I think it's time we shut
up and had Howlin' Wolf onstage!

Yeah I agree, let's get him
out, Howlin' Wolf, bring him on!

♪ How many more years Do I have
to let you dog me around? ♪

♪ How many more years Do I have
to let you dog me around? ♪

♪ I would rather be dead ♪

And once again, that mystery of
what it is and how awesome it is

goes right back down to Charley
Patton and Dockery Farms.

America didn't let the blues reach the white
kids until the British guys started playing it,

then they thought it was something
new the British guys was bringing here.

The Stones, the Beatles and whoever
else was picking up a guitar.

There's a definite thread from Charley
Patton, Howlin Wolf to Led Zeppelin, you know,

it went like that basically.

Jimmy Page will tell
you that if you ask him.

♪ I'm gonna leave you
cause it's high time ♪

♪ Somebody else is
beatin' my time ♪

♪ But you never hear me cry ♪

♪ As long as you live,
you'll be dead if you die ♪

Well, I can't help it.

Oh fuck, I don't know how it goes.

It's all the same; I can't
tell where to come in.

♪ I'm gonna leave you
cause it's high time ♪

♪ Somebody else is
beatin' my time ♪

Mildred began singing in speakeasies,
and she became big in speakeasies.

In this little speakeasy that she and Benny
the Bootlegger had, she brewed her own beer.

But when Mildred Bailey came to New York

in the late '20s, early '30s

uh, everything was completely segregated.

She knew who the great musicians were and
she started recording with black musicians

almost from the moment she got here.

Mildred was a cornerstone.

She serves as a cornerstone in
the direction that jazz took.

This was her mother's land
for generations before Mildred

and my grandmother was the
recipient of ancient music.

On the Coeur D'Alene Reservation, there
was no social gathering without singing.

The way the notes are stretched and
condensed and move over the bar lines.

Mildred sings from Lover, Come Back to Me

♪ I remember every little
thing you used to do ♪

When Mildred Bailey does it, it's hard not
to look at the way those glides are used

in the traditional songs of
the region where she grew up.

♪ Every road I walk along
I've walked along with you ♪

When asked how she came to
be the singer that she became,

she pointed to the
Indian songs of her youth.

♪ Old rockin' chair's got me ♪

She was one of the great
improvisers of jazz.

You know, you say, "Old
rocking chair's got me."

You sing it, maybe it's written
that way, but it always says,

"Old rocking chair's got me," you know.

You just change it, you know,
whatever you feel at the moment.

It's something that you
can't learn in school.

I'm eighty years old, you know, what am
I talking about, I'm eighty-eight and uh

from sixteen to twenty years old,
I was working as a singing waiter

in Astoria, Long Island here and that's the
only thing I listened to, was Mildred Bailey.

I was completely influenced
by Mildred Bailey.

She sang perfect, for me.

And here's your rocking
chair lady, Mildred Bailey!

Hi everybody, come right in and cut yourself
a share of kicks around that old rocking chair.

♪ Noah, Noah, let me come in ♪

♪ Doors all fastened and
the windows pinned... ♪

She's the first female band singer, period.

And the first female to have a radio show.

♪ Noah said you done
lost your track. ♪

Frank Sinatra went up to Julia Rinker at
a recording session in the '70s and said,

"I knew your aunt, and she is
one of the most significant people

in terms of how I learned to sing and who I
emulate to this day." Frank Sinatra said that.

♪ Keep your hand on
the plow, hold on! ♪

Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby,
she had a hand in shaping jazz vocal style.

♪ Wanna get to heaven,
I'll tell you how ♪

♪ Keep your hand on
the gospel plow! ♪

It's important not just to re-situate
Mildred Bailey in that jazz narrative,

but by doing that, we bring the story
of the Native American perspective

into that jazz narrative.

Seeing as this is an
unlawful assembly. Disperse.

♪ Can you remember the time ♪

♪ That you have held
your head high? ♪

♪ And told all of your
friends of your Indian claim ♪

♪ Proud good lady
and proud good man ♪

I went to Greenwich Village
and I was not in show business.

I was a college girl on her way to India
and I thought I would try my luck at singing.

And it was folk music time.

♪ Oh, it's written in
books and in songs ♪

♪ That we've been
mistreated and wronged ♪

All of a sudden the streets
were just alive with people

with broader minds than
the generation before.

And it was just the perfect
time for me, you know.

If it had been a different time, I
probably never would have had a career.

♪ And you feel you're a
part of these ones... ♪

At the essence, folk music is
telling the stories of the day.

And it's telling stories of the day or the
people who are most of the time the most excluded,

the most-the most
uh, the trampled-upon.

This is a song about a human
being who is also an Indian

and if you don't remember his name,

I think you may after this
song. It's called Ira Hayes.

The first folk singer signed at Columbia
was not Bob Dylan, it was Peter La Farge.

♪ For a thousand years The
sparkling water rushed ♪

♪ Till the white man
stole their water rights ♪

For natives, for the singer-songwriter,
Peter La Farge was the man.

He was addressing the reality we were
going through and our attitude towards it.

We were listening to each other's music.

There was a real protest
movement going on about Vietnam.

Universal Soldier on, you know,
I mean, she was an activist;

she was the first woman of of
activism that had an audience.

♪ He's five-foot-two
and he's six-feet-four ♪

♪ He fights with missiles
and with spears ♪

She was very instrumental
in making those images

and those points clear to a
very open and willing audience.

♪ And he's fighting in Canada He's fighting
in France He's fighting in the USA ♪

Unlike my peers in show business uh,
who had never been to a reservation,

and unlike my peers on the reservation
who had no clout or power or voice um,

I had those two.

♪ This is not the way
we put an end to war. ♪

♪ Old Custer he split his men
Well, he won't do that again. ♪

♪ The general, he don't
ride well anymore. ♪

Johnny Cash wanted to make a folk
record and he had seen La Farge before.

And he said, "I have to meet this musician."
And Johnny Cash felt very connected,

and then they hung out and spoke and he
said, "I want to take some of your songs

and turn them into a record."

He was in an extremely
high moment in his career

coming off the success of Ring of Fire.

♪ I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher ♪

♪ And it burns, burns, burns The
ring of fire, the ring of fire ♪

And even at that moment, riding
the high of these giant hits,

Columbia Records are still trying
to block him from making this record.

Johnny was fighting and
ready to throw his career away

if they wouldn't put this record out.

He was going to put it out, you
know, no matter what they said.

He knew this album was
essentially censored and banned.

So Johnny Cash decides to write
a letter about his displeasure.

Line after line of scathing
indictment of the record industry.

And he himself putting the
letter in the record sleeve

and then personally not just mailing
the record to the specific DJs,

but appearing in the city when he was
performing to the DJ with the record and saying,

"Just give it a chance."

I've got very little
Indian blood in me myself,

except in my heart I've
got 100% for you tonight.

♪ Gather round me people
There's a story I would tell ♪

♪ About a brave young Indian
That we should remember well ♪

♪ From the tribe of
the Pima Indian ♪

♪ A proud and peaceful band... ♪

Well, I asked the DJs, "Why
don't you play Bitter Tears?"

And then it was the same answer, "Well,
it makes you feel guilty, you know."

"Uh, I didn't wreck your damn life."

"You know, I didn't take away
your damn land, it wasn't me."

I'm, "Well, so what?"

"I'm not telling you
did, why don't you put..."

"Well, we can't do that."

Here they were.

They were all hunted down, up this
canyon as far as those pine trees are,

across the creek over there.

By America banning that album,

it just closed everyone's conscience

of the American Indian and their struggles.

I was no longer a marginalized
person writing Universal Soldier

or talking about Native American
issues in a coffee house.

All of a sudden I was talking about
those things on big-time television.

And all of a sudden everything disappeared.

All of a sudden there was no interest.

And it was only twenty, twenty-five
years later that in Toronto,

a radio broadcaster started an
interview by apologizing to me

for having gone along with letters
written on White House stationery

commending them for supressing my
music, which "deserved to be suppressed."

And that's the way he started the interview

Apparently, I had FBI files and got blacklisted,
although I didn't know it at the time.

And later on it was the
CIA as well, I understand.

They went after Buffy and
they went after a lot of people

at that time just to kind
of keep them silenced.

I think I could have been more effective
had I not been gagged in the US.

But who was it who owned the newspapers?

Who owned the television stations?

Who owned the radio stations?

Were they going to play
Buffy Sainte-Marie? No!

It was the oil companies.

It was people who were digging
for uranium, stealing uranium,

transferring it into private hands.

That's who owned all that.

You think that they were going to be
making me a star? I don't think so.

Well, what Jimi was doing when he
was playing Hear My Train A Comin',

it was for a television show, I think.

No amps, no pedals, no wah-wah's, no tricks,
no dancing and no playing with his teeth.

And he's just bringing pure-the power
of the earth and history through him.

♪ Waitin' for the train, yeah ♪

He's bringing the Charley Patton, you
know, he's bringing uh, the Link Wray,

he's bringing all those
things up through him.

Well, I knew he had music in him, because when
he was small, his daddy bought him a guitar,

an old guitar for him to play
on, you know, around with the boys

and so I knew he was musical.

But I didn't know that he had
that much music in him, you see.

My grandma lived to be a hundred years old,

which is um, amazing feat to itself but um,

her father was slave, freed.

Her mother was half Cherokee, and
she grew up on the reservation.

So she always kept that um, memory

of being proud of being Cherokee.

Being part Native was very
meaningful to my grandmother.

She talked about that a lot and really
instilled that in all of us, but especially Jimi.

She was a-a singer, a dancer,
and she was in Vaudeville.

She had this beautiful trunk, and
it had feathers and boas and velvet,

and Jimi used to love
to play in this trunk.

Try on the vests, try on
the hats with a huge feather

and beautiful tan suede coats
that were full of fringe.

Back then, my room was
covered with Jimi posters.

And I used to have to kind of
laugh because some of the posters,

they made Jimi really dark,
like really like super dark.

And I was just like, he wasn't that dark.

And he was very, very fair and he had caramel
coloured skin and beautiful almond-shaped eyes,

and you could definitely tell he had
various cultures that he was born with.

The package that was Jimi Hendrix was
that indigenous quality that he had in him

that a lot of people don't
know that he had in him.

But, you know, to bring that to the
stage and celebrate it through his music

and his presence, you know,
that adds to the power, man.

So during that period of
time, now Indians are in.

The hippies, the flower children emerging.

So they want to be Indians themselves.

When he went up to Woodstock you have
the beautiful white jacket with fringe,

with turquoise beading.

Part of it is, yes, it is the '60s, but for
him it was much more meaningful than that.

When we reached the site
of the Woodstock Festival,

Mitch Mitchell, the drummer, looked
out he says, "Oh my goodness!"

he'd never seen that many people before.

And I said, "What is it, Mitch?"
And I looked out and said, "Oh no!"

And then Jimi looked out and said,
"Hm," with all the wisdom that he had,

I don't know where he got
this wisdom, but he said,

"You know, those people are
sending a lot of energy up on stage,

so let us take that energy, utilize
it, and send it back to them."

I see that we meet again.
Hmm. Well, well, well.

And when he's doing the Star
Spangled Banner at Woodstock

it just sounded like everything that had
happened up to that point in his life,

in his family's life, it
was this amazing collision

of putting what the country was going
through or or his generation to sound.

You know, it was a pretty amazing moment.

I think he was including
all of his frustration

with civil rights, with racism,

with the war in Vietnam,
with political oppression,

and I think they all
come out in his playing.

I mean, you hear it. He's
painting a picture for you.

All you gotta do is listen.

Some people thought at that
time it was sacrilegious.

And my dad got really tense and he wasn't
breathing and I was like, "Are you OK?"

And he said.

He kept looking over at the police officer
and he said, "I really..." once it was over,

he could breathe, because he thought the
police officer was going to arrest him,

because you just didn't do that then.

He was very proud.

I mean, he was very proud of being Native
and being African American and being Scottish.

It's part of your legacy; it's part of
your heritage; it's part of who you are

and what you want to reflect and represent.

It's kind of the American
superhero in a way.

It's like, he's a little bit of everything
and uh, and, but none of it's diluted.

It's like he's more powerful because of it.

Yonge Street from when I was very
young, it was a centre of music

that I didn't know how things were

in Chicago or Detroit of New York,

but Yonge Street was on fire.

You'd try to listen through the
doors or peek through the windows,

and then somebody would
go in one of these places

and you would hear the
music come flooding out

and it would be like, "Oh, did you hear
that?" you know, just those few seconds.

When I was sixteen, Ronnie Hawkins
hired me to play in the Hawks.

All of a sudden, they were our Beatles.

These guys could do no
wrong. They just killed me.

♪ Hey, Bo Diddley! ♪

And Robbie was just outrageous.

He'd launch into a solo and we'd just stand there
and think, "Oh my God, listen to this guy play.

How does he do that?"

Robbie came up with something that
I hadn't heard anybody else do.

He just didn't play like anybody else.

My real guitar lessons were at
the Six Nation Indian Reserve.

All my cousins, uncles, aunts, everybody,
seemed like they could play an instrument.

♪ Oh, sometimes I can see The
things you wanted me to be ♪

This mix between a Native kind of
music and a country kind of music.

So I thought, well,
this is just what you do.

I've got to learn how to do this.
I've got to get into this club.

And there was this key expression,

"Be proud you're an Indian,
but be careful who you tell."

And I used to tell everybody
that one of these days

I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna
play music all over the world.

And they'd be like, "You know, we don't
want to see you get a broken heart,

because that doesn't
happen to people like us."

I was like, "No, no, no, you can't spoil my
dream. I'm in the middle of it." You know.

"Don't wake me up now."

And so I went and I pursued these things.

And then joining up with Bob Dylan, and
then we're in a musical revolution now.

Now we're doing something that has
reverberations around the world.

Don't boo me anymore.

Don't boo me, God they're
booing, I can't stand it.

Oh my God, it's hard to get
in tune when they're booing!

When Bob decided to take a
band out, he chose the Hawks.

Just as the folk world's starting to

finally relate to him, he leaves.

He plugs in, causing enormous reactions.

That group considered electrified
rock and roll commercial.

And therefore, a betrayal politically.

And I think they caught the brunt of it.

I think then Dylan says, "Play it fuckin'
loud." And they played Like a Rolling Stone.

And Robbie is there literally, I
think he said, "Play it fuckin' loud."

Bang! He turned it up.

And they were phenomenal, all right.

This is one of the greatest... the
band's greatest tours ever in history.

And people would boo.

Every night in every place we'd play,
people would boo and throw stuff at you.

You'd pack up your equipment
and you'd go on to the next place

and people would boo you
and throw stuff at you.

And you'd think, "What a strange
way to make a buck, you know."

Robbie Robertson told me, he says,
"We started taping the shows to listen

in the hotel room because we're
like, what are we missing here?

Why-why-why are we-why
are they booing this?

Because this sounds pretty good to me."

But after a while, we got so
we were doing it really well,

and there was an attitude
towards the music.

And uh, a violence and a dynamic and something
that you just didn't hear anywhere else.

And as that grew, I started
to think, which is pretty bold,

we're right, and the world is wrong.

♪ That's when that
little love of mine ♪

♪ Dips her donut in my tea ♪

♪ Up on Cripple
Creek she sends me ♪

♪ If I spring a
leak, she mends me ♪

♪ I don't have to
speak; she defends me ♪

♪ A drunkard's dream if
I ever did see one. ♪

The entire industry got right back
to song-writing and Robbie Robertson,

one of the great song writers of
all time, had effectuated that change

by his own sensibility
and the band's sensibility.

It seems like at a time when everything
was psychedelic and all this stuff,

then The Band came out and they kind
of brought everything back to earth.

I mean, Clapton wanted to be in The Band.

And George Harrison
wanted to be in The Band.

Everybody wanted to be in The Band.

They became instant classics, and
they were milestones in American music,

because it was a new standard.

We wanted it to be more than just a
concert, we wanted it to be a celebration.

He said that The Band is
gonna give its last performance

and they're gonna have all these guests.

Everyone from Van Morrison and Muddy Waters

to Joni Mitchell, Neil Young,
you know, Ronnie Hawkins.

I said, "Well, forget it." I said,
"This has somehow gotta be recorded."

♪ The night they
drove Old Dixie down ♪

♪ And all the people
were singing, they went ♪

♪ Nah nah nah nah nah ♪

Listen to the lyrics of The
Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

over and over again and
still find something new.

It's still, when you hear their
music, it's not of the past.

It's of the present.

My name is B. Mitchell Reid and I'm
talking here with Jesse Ed Davis.

How'd you pick up a guitar?

Jimmy Reed and Elvis Presley came on.

That really did it for me.

I can't say enough about
how valuable Jesse Davis was.

He had a special touch, special sound for
the blues, which I love the way he played.

When I listen to his solo to
this day I hear every note.

But with Jesse Ed you always felt
like there was more in his back pocket.

You never felt like you
got everything he had.

I particularly fell in love with Jesse
Edwin Davis because he was with Taj Mahal,

and Taj's album is what
spurred me to rock more.

That-that touched something inside of me.

So we're playing live
at the Whisky a Go Go.

I usually played my
harmonica with my eyes closed.

And I happened to open them up in the
middle and looked down on the floor

and there's Mick Jagger dancing; there's Brian
Jones dancing; there is Keith Richards dancing.

And it was just one of the best times.

It was just... it
couldn't have been better.

And somewhere along the last part of November,
eight tickets came to our manager's office.

First-class round trip
tickets on BOAC to London.

And to be asked to the Rolling Stones.

The rest is history.

I don't think Taj was selling
a lot of records at that point,

but then they went to England
and did the Rock and Roll Circus.

And Jesse met John Lennon.

And they hit it off
like long lost brothers.

And so of course John just
fell in love with this guy.

When Jesse went over and they
found out that he was Native,

they were so enthralled with
that, they took to him right away.

I gotta commend him for being bold enough to
come right out and being proud of his culture

and proud of his blood line.

Jesse had a bit of exotic about him too.

He was Native American, he was a cool dresser,
and he played great, tight, dynamic blues.

And the British rock aristocracy,
they loved this, you know.

This is something they can't get naturally.

They have to import it.

So that's why Jesse
became such a go-to guy.

John Lennon loved Jesse Ed over the moon.

He thought he was one of the greatest
guitar players he's ever heard.

That's how I got into
the Bangladesh concert.

About two days before the concert,
Eric Clapton came down really sick

and George called me up and
said, "Look, will you play?"

And of course I said yes.

I just jumped at the chance.

This is Jesse Ed Davis.

Everybody wanted to use him at that point.

Here he is with the Beatles,
Clapton, you know uh, the biggest,

most important musicians in
the world, they all wanted him.

When I was making my first record I thought,
you know, like I get Jesse Ed to play,

and I called him and he listened to
the song I had in mind for him to play

and he said, "I don't really
hear myself playing on this.

You got anything else?"

I said, "Yeah, well, okay,
cue up that other song."

And uh, and that other song was the song
that he wound up playing on Doctor my Eyes.

He played it once. He listened
to it for a minute and he said,

"Okay, I can play this.
This. I can play on this."

And he says, "Just cue it up and I..."
he goes out and he's tuning his guitar.

I mean, I wound up just
recording everything.

I said, "You better record everything."
So he tunes up as he's getting to the solo

and he says, "OK, that's the solo? OK."

And he didn't do the whole length of it
or anything like that, he's like, "OK."

And he played this solo once.

My record comes out and he's shocked to find
out that it's a hit; it's like a top ten hit.

Like, he's all over the place; everybody's
saying, "Who is that guitar player?"

And people still want to play
that solo if they play that song.

♪ Doctor, my Eyes
Cannot see the sky ♪

He was hanging out with some very
important people, big rock 'n' roll people,

who were very into heroin.
And they just did it.

- It was like, "Want to try some of this?"
- "Sure."

The Jesse Ed that I knew before he left
on the, uh, Rod Stewart and Faces tour

was not the Jesse that came home.

He came back from that tour a
junkie, and he wasn't before.

He went and checked into yet another
rehab for Indian people: the Eagle Lodge.

And by then I was done.

I'm, like, "Show me a year; I want to see that
one year chip or don't bother coming home."

In 1985 I was speaking at Cal State Long
Beach and Jesse was in a halfway house,

the Eagle Lodge Halfway House in Long Beach

and so that whole crew from that
halfway house came to my speaking thing.

And then Jesse introduced himself and
the first thing he did was he me his name

and the second thing he said to me
was he could make music from my words.

See, and I had been looking for
two years for somebody to do that.

♪ Grafitti Man's got
something to say ♪

♪ Message in a scrawl ♪

♪ Message on the wall ♪

♪ Put on blinders! ♪

Grafitti Man with John
Trudell; I thought this was so original

and there was something just beautiful
about what they were doing together.

And Bob Dylan got a copy of it and he
did this interview with Rolling Stone

and he said it was the
best album of the year.

He's the one that got attention to us.

This is '85 when they did the first
record and he was completely sober

the entire time he was doing it.

I know he was because I'm the Sobriety
Sargent-at-Arms, and so is John.

When he showed up in my life,
ex-drug-addict; he's fightin' a habit

and I'm an ex-kicked out
militant political activist.

You know, there's no
demographic for us. Fuck.

I mean in reality who's gonna take us on?

Because there's no demographic for that.

I'm real proud to be playing with John
Trudell and I'm real proud to be an Indian.

And this is, uh, something I hope that
doesn't go by you, what we're trying to do.

What Jesse did was he brought
me music, he gave me a band;

he dressed me up as a rock 'n' roller.

He put me on stage, helped me learn how
to be on stage, and then he checked out.

That's what Jesse did.

I mean that's the way I look at it.

Now here's a guy who can
play guitar; can make you cry

and make you laugh and make you think.

Yet he was self-medicating himself to a
degree; he must have been in so much pain

that he was taking so much medicine
that it eventually killed him.

And they found him dead on the floor of
the laundry room of his apartment building

in Culver City with a needle in his arm.

So the demons came back.

If he had been cleaned
up, something got him back.

It broke my heart.

We thought our contribution
was really very positive.

We walked the land, played
the music that we loved.

And, uh, some of us lived to talk about it.

There's nobody who plays like him.

He's not gone; he is everywhere.

I can't put a radio on, I can't go to
the market... anywhere-he's everywhere.

I want that music to continue to bring
joy and blow people's minds always,

and it always will.

♪ Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky ♪

♪ Is this the prize For having
learned how not to cry? ♪

That's why Pat and Lolly Vegas
ask you, Do you want to dance?

♪ Do you wanna dance
and hold my hand? ♪

♪ Tell me I'm your lovin' man ♪

♪ Oh baby, do you wanna dance? ♪

My grandfather had a guitar.

He set it above the armoire,
you know, and he said,

"When you can reach that
guitar you can have it."

And, uh-so I stood on a chair and took it.

♪ Do you wanna dance? ♪

I just got the bug, you know.

Once I got it, that was it; it was over.

That's all I wanted to do, you know.

My brother and I, we said we're
either gonna go to New York or L.A.

to pursue the music, to
pursue the dream, you know?

And, uh, we flipped a
coin; it came out L.A.

Was it hard? Like, when you
guys first came to Hollywood,

two guys from northern
California; you know, dark skin.

I know it must have been hard
for you to get jobs and shit so.

Yeah, 'cause they weren't hiring.

The Sunset Strip and Hollywood
wasn't hiring anybody that was ethnic.

Like black or brown. You
had to be strictly white.

Now? Another Gazzarri hotspot!
Hollywood A Go-Go on the Sunset Strip!

These are the lucky ones; they got
inside. Not everyone was so fortunate.

We went and played at Gazzarri's on
the Strip. It used to be a block, two blocks

down the street waiting to get
in every night, seven days a week.

Did they have all sorts of
different bands rotating out?

No, just one band. Headlining Vegas.

♪ Oh, baby! Do
you wanna dance? ♪

We were wearing really nice
mohair suits with nice black shoes.

♪ Do you, do you, do
you wanna dance? ♪

And we did our Cajun set
and we wore bib overalls.

I had to keep changing so I had to do
something that we could actually hold onto

and it would be ours.

Jimi was one of the people
that supported us the most.

He's the one that told us in the very
beginning, "Do the Indian thing, man."

To see them on Midnight Special
doing Come And Get Your Love

in full regalia

doing the drum chants before they would
go into one of their hit records...

That was actually-that was pretty heavy.

♪ ♪

We used to mic the floor, you know.

So when we came out, the stomping
sounded like a herd of buffalo coming.

You know what I mean?
It really sounded loud.

There we were, uh, four young Native Americans
doing these chants, these primitive chants

and then all of a sudden
going to this rock 'n' roll.

And then put the two together
and the people would just say,

"Wow, what's going on?
What's going on here?"

♪ Hell, hell, what's the
matter with your head? ♪

They couldn't believe it.

Here they are, these four Indians,
with you know, garb and moccasins

and all the things that they've seen
in film actually playing rock, you know.

And our album came out and it
just took off and it went crazy.

You know Come And Get Your Love,
it's in Guardians of the Galaxy.

♪ Hell, hell what the
matter with your head yeah ♪

When the hero is marching through the
alien landscape knocking off monsters

and all this stuff, he's
strutting to Redbone.

There's a real conqueror's
vibe to that song.

It's a great track; it's a great
song and they were a great band.

And they're great artists, you know.

Uh, it's not easy to come up with a really
accessible, funky, heartfelt hit single;

that's not an easy thing
to do and they did it.

♪ Come and get your love
Come and get your love ♪

You can be explicitly political
and make an important point,

but ultimately getting
through is the best revenge.

You want to do it with class;
you want to do it with dignity.

And Redbone did that.

They had the class; they had
the dignity; they had the hooks.

And they got through.

So they win.

I come from, uh, East Los Angeles,
California, living in the barrios.

I lived in the barrios. You did? Where?

I was in east L.A. on Geraghty.

Dude, I lived in Boyle Heights-Dogtown.

I was in Geraghty, dude.

Wow!

Yes, East L.A. Represent, Dude.

Bass line off of your song it
mirrors, uh, the song we had, uh,

called Let's Get It
Started that we did in 2003.

Yeah, I loved that.

Yeah, it's got that-it's got that
haunting, like, walking, like,

♪ Domp, domp, domp, domp, domp, domp,
domp, domp, domp, ♪ Ghost Spirit.

You got twenty-five thousand
people in an audience

singing Let's Get It Started,

dancing to that bass line
and people are going bananas.

The Black Eyed Peas sold sixty
million records around the world.

I grew up understanding my Mexican
roots more than my Native roots.

There has to be something that sparks
you and some people will be, like,

"Well, it was my dad or my mom." But
honestly for me it was my grandma.

When I went to my
grandmother as I got older,

she would start breaking
out the old old photo albums.

By bringing me into her
culture, which was, uh, Shoshone,

it set me into understanding
where I come from.

It started making sense to him.

Like, "Why do I feel this way? Why do I hear
things this way? Why do I dance this way?

And can fit these rhythms in
that are neither black nor white.

I started realizing how
important and how beautiful

being Shoshone and being Mexican were.

When you hear something that you
sparked off and inspired so many people

and you weren't aware of that
and it just takes you by surprise-

Yeah. Yeah. It was inspiring.

You know, I-I want to do another one.

You know, I love that you and
I come from the same background.

Our stories are similar and it's good to
see positive brothers trying to inspire.

That just lifts me up; I'm off
the ground right now, you know.

That's a beautiful thing for me.

Rock 'n' roll! Heavy metal!
Party! Rock's bitchin!

I moved to L.A. in 1985.

The Sunset Strip back then was
packed and crazy every night.

All the girls had like no clothes
on; all the guys had crazy hair.

You'd be in front of the Roxy
and you'd see Axl, Slash, Matt Sorum,

you'd see all these guys who were pretty
much gonna be the future of rock 'n' roll,

I mean everybody was there.

I wanted to be a rock star; I didn't
want to be like an "Indian rock star"

I wanted just to be a rock star.

I was homeless, I was broke,
but I knew I was going to have to

come up with some kind of of
identity if I was going to make it.

In L.A., I really didn't fit in because
I wasn't black and I wasn't white.

So I was a rock guy but I
really loved black music.

I was playing with George
Clinton and Bootsy Collins

and everyone in town thought I
was this super funk guitar player.

But the truth is they wouldn't even let
me play any funk on their records at all;

they'd only let me play rock.

But I'd watch them and I'd learn,
because those guys could play funk

like on a whole other level.

Then I'd get around my white
friends and I'd play some funk

and then my funk would
blow their funk away, right,

so to them they all
thought I was this funk guy.

All of the sudden I'm at the Philadelphia
Spectrum playing in front of

25, 000 people with Rod Stewart rupping
a solo on the song Dynamite.

I mean this whole thing was madness to me.
I mean, my last band was my high school band.

Stevie Salas: bad rock
'n' roller; rock star.

You got to have balls and that's
what it takes for rock 'n' roll.

So I'm on a private jet; I'm making
tons of money and I have all these women,

but pretty soon I don't
know who I am anymore.

Randy Castillo, he befriended me
knowing I was a Native American

and he met me right when I was
finishing the Rod Stewart tour.

I was going deeper and deeper into alcohol
and partying and which girl I could be with

and how much money I could
make or house I could buy,

and he could tell I was losing my mind.

He said to me, "I'm going
to take you to New Mexico".

I'm taking John Trudell with me up to Taos.

We want to get together and have a little bit of
a talk about our departed friend Randy Castillo.

Mr. Randy Castillo!

Randy Castillo.

Randy Castillo from New Mexico.

He'd be like playing his drums. I
remember he always did this thing

where he hit the kick
drum: boom, boom, boom.

Mega-star.

Mega-star.

Cover of every magazine.

Mr. Randy Castillo!

I was in Los Angeles and spent my
time then going fucking nuts, right?

You know, just every actress I could
see, every Playboy bunny I could get;

every cocktail I could drink.

Me and Randy started becoming friends
and he says, "You're pretty fucked up."

He goes, "I need to take
you to Indian country."

Right.

I didn't really ever
have heard that phrase.

Indian country? He brought me here.

The secret to Indian country
is when you're losing your mind

only lose the parts that need losing.

- Right it is. I'll tell you.
- Right.

The last thing you wanted to be when
you were my great-great-grandfather

was an Indian because only bad
things were happening to Indians.

The Mexicans could chase the Apache
into America without permission...

if they they were in
pursuit of killing Apache.

The Americans could cross
into Mexico without permission

if they were chasing
Apache and killing Apache.

It depended where you were at in the land.

Some places they would rather
be an Indian than a Mexican.

And in some places they'd rather
be a Mexican than an Indian.

All right?

Uh, and in some places, they didn't
want to be either but they were

so some of them would be
calling themselves Hispanic.

Randy Castillo was confident and loved being an
Indian, heads up loud and proud and representing,

He was just such a beautiful man and a
great ambassador for the American Indians.

He was just such a great
drummer, number one.

And he was an amazing showman.

Randy's roots, his Native American roots,
his New Mexican roots, made him stand out.

He was like a spirit; that's what
you sensed coming into the room.

You know, if you walked
into a room and he was there

and even if you didn't see
him, you knew he was there.

He was just out there and he was putting
it out there and he was like a magnet.

I mean, he knew exactly who he
was, exactly who he was gonna be.

We were really close.

When we had a day off we'd spend
it together; we'd go to a nightclub.

He rapidly became one of my best friends.

Ozzy! Ozzy! Ozzy!

Here's a song dedicated to Mr. Randy
Castillo, it's a number called Tattooed Dancer.

Well, Randy had become one of the most
influential heavy metal drummers in the world,

uh, because of his work with Ozzy.

And Ozzy always said he loved working
with indigenous people, Hispanic people.

It was like he had a connection with them
'cause he felt they had better rhythm.

And he always mentioned Randy
as being a direct connection

to that indigenous energy
and that rhythm that he loved.

Oh say... my brothers.

How are you, man?

Good to see you.

How are you?

It was always in Randy's blood
because... being Apache you know,

but he took it to a different
level and went higher,

became one of the best
drummers in the world.

I know when he saw Benito's drums
he wanted a whole trap set like that.

You know.

And too bad we didn't get to
do that, you know, for him.

He had a style that was
obviously influenced by his roots,

kind of Indian drumming thing
that was going underneath it;

he didn't drum like a normal person.

Normal people would just-you know,
they just play drums like this.

But there was this

it was just this pounding thing
that was going through everything.

It was his heartbeat; Randy's
playing the heartbeat and that's it.

It's it; it's Indian country right there.

Bam!

A lot of that funk, it's from
the earth; it's organic, you know.

It's-it comes from the war dances
and there's something tribal about it.

It's very primal.

And that I always equate to his roots.

You know he had, uh, a grandmother
who was a curandero, a healer.

And he was very much in touch with
that kind of spiritual thinking

and his indigenous ancestry.

He transcended all of the civil stuff
that you see on a day-to-day level.

He sort of had this little
jump over where he had a path

that went back to that and he
was constantly tapping into that

and bringing that in through his
music, through the way he played.

And one day we were going somewhere
and I went to pick him up and he said,

"Hey, you know I found something over
here; I've got this little thing over here."

and I go, "What's that?"

And he goes, "Well,
it's like a little bump."

And I said, "Well, it's probably
you're picking at your, you know,

whiskers all the time or
whatever it is you're doing."

He goes, "No, it's underneath."

And I said, "Well, you know, I don't
know; maybe you should get it checked out."

And he sort of neglected it for
a while and... and one day he goes,

"Well, uh, I went to the
doctor about that today."

Then he said, uh, "I'm just gonna go home."

And I go, "What's going on?"

And he goes, "Well, um-uh, that thing
that I've got on my neck, it's cancer."

Just went from being this huge
personality to just this waif

of a memory of something that once was.

I run into Hispanics, Native
Americans today that come up to me

and ask me about Randy Castillo, you know.

He's a celebrated hero
amongst that community.

Just keep on practicing like a maniac.

Practice. Practice.

And listen and try to play with other
people as much as you possibly can

because you can learn
a lot faster that way.

And, uh, the whole idea
is to play with a band.

You know you can lock yourself up
in your room and practice forever

but if you don't play with somebody
then, uh, you're gonna sound that way.

So, uh, stick with it, you know and, uh,
you'll do it if you want it bad enough.

♪ Stand up, stand up! ♪

♪ Stand up, stand up! ♪

When you're surrounded by beautiful
people that come from the Nations,

and they're proud of their
heritage; it just inspires everybody.

♪ We've been fightin' for our freedom since
the Nina and the Pinta and the Santa Maria ♪

♪ Stand up! Like Geronimo, Sitting Bull,
Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Leonard Peltier ♪

Indigenous people being left
out of the story of music

of course has everything
to do with the land.

It has to do with the way of
imagining the American Dream,

which was a land cleared
of indigenous people.

♪ Don't stand between the
reservations and the corporate banks ♪

♪ They'll send in federal tanks
It isn't nice but it's reality ♪

♪ Bury my Heart
at Wounded Knee ♪

It's been a long time but we're still
here; we're still alive and we're singing.

♪ Cover me with pretty lies ♪

♪ Bury my Heart
at Wounded Knee ♪

They tried to erase it
but it didn't get erased.

If they had erased it, we wouldn't
be able to pick up the pieces.

♪ They got these energy
companies who want the land ♪

♪ And they've got
churches by the dozens ♪

Yeah, you wouldn't let me talk about it
before; well, now I'm gonna talk real loud.

♪ Want to guide our hand and sing our mother
earth over to pollution, war and greed ♪

♪ Bury my Heart
at Wounded Knee ♪

The big racket's been
around for a long time.

And anybody who really wants to be
effective learns how not to fight it...

'cause they'll outgun you, but
how to work around it, through it,

how to even heal it up.

We carry a medicine in us, you know,
especially the medicine of the arts.

♪ Bury my Heart
at Wounded Knee! ♪

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