Authors: Christian Staebler, Sonia Paoloni
Illustrator: Thibault Balahy
Release Date: October 27, 2020
From the Publisher:
You've heard the hit song "Come and Get Your Love" in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, but the story of the band behind it is one of cultural, political, and social importance.
Brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas were talented Native American rock musicians that took the 1960s Sunset Strip by storm. They influenced The Doors and jammed with Jimmy Hendrix before he was "Jimi," and the idea of a band made up of all Native Americans soon followed. Determined to control their creative vision and maintain their cultural identity, they eventually signed a deal with Epic Records in 1969. But as the American Indian Movement gained momentum the band took a stand, choosing pride in their ancestry over continued commercial reward.
Created in cooperation of the Vegas family, authors Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni with artist Thibault Balahy take painstaking steps to ensure the historical accuracy of this important and often overlooked story of America's past. Part biography and part research journalism, Redbone provides a voice to a people long neglected in American history.
Brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas were talented Native American rock musicians that took the 1960s Sunset Strip by storm. They influenced The Doors and jammed with Jimmy Hendrix before he was "Jimi," and the idea of a band made up of all Native Americans soon followed. Determined to control their creative vision and maintain their cultural identity, they eventually signed a deal with Epic Records in 1969. But as the American Indian Movement gained momentum the band took a stand, choosing pride in their ancestry over continued commercial reward.
Created in cooperation of the Vegas family, authors Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni with artist Thibault Balahy take painstaking steps to ensure the historical accuracy of this important and often overlooked story of America's past. Part biography and part research journalism, Redbone provides a voice to a people long neglected in American history.
My Thoughts:
This band and this song was a little before my time so until the music came out on Guardians of the Galaxy, I was not aware of Redbone or "Come and Get Your Love," however, once you hear it, this song is sooooooo catchy. Thank goodness for YouTube and its ability to memorialize the song and the singers.
I love Indigenous and minority feel good stories that have to do with triumph versus reality, social justice wins versus protest and loss. I also love when the myriad of spider web connections catches me unaware (well in real life I do not love the idea of walking through a spider web, but metaphorical web encounters - I am all for it).
So the spider web story starts like this - a couple weeks ago I am on NetGalley showing my English language arts student teachers how and where I find books. This is part of my "live your craft" lecture. Anyway I am on Zoom, sharing my screen, and I go to NetGalley to show them how you can create a profile of book preferences, see what they have and I wanted to show them how to request books. Under YA and graphic novels, Redbone pops up on my computer. These companies and their algorithms know me and know that I like memoirs and am always on the hunt for Indigenous, minority, (non-Default White package) literature, both prose and graphic forms.
I can read it now so I click on it and it sits in my dashboard (and I go about my days).
Today, there was a Graphic Jam webinar from one of the big YA library sources (part of my lecture of living your craft is also to hang out with the YA librarians and go to the webinars that they go to) and they start talking about Redbone. I go to YouTube to get the video (above) and go to Amazon to buy the book, when [gasp!] I cannot see it because it has not released yet. I took a chance and went to NetGalley and happy day - I actually had already put it on my queue based (see, stepped in the spider web).
What I love about this story is that as another Indigenous person, I love to see that process of not necessarily "coming of age" but "coming of identity." Each of us embraces our cultural identity at different points. It is a painful process sometimes because we need to first turn our back on survival through assimilation and be vulnerable to step out of our safe bubble of invisibility or "passing." Redbone does just that. From the brothers Lolly and Pat changing their last name to Vegas versus Vasquez to sound more stage name fabulous and less Indian to getting advice from Jimmy Hendrix that it is obvious that they are Indian (not Mexican) and they cannot forget their roots. Hendrix suggested Redbone in 1967 but it was a seed that was planted and would take another three years before the boys could step into their identity as Redbone. The journey of stepping out of invisibility in this story is a powerful because when the text is sparse, the impact hits home more.
This book needs to be read. This voice needs to be heard. These stories need to be told.
I just found their booktrailer at the IDW Publishing booth (NCTE 2020) so sharing it here:
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