Film About The First Black Hippie With Iggy Pop And Patti Smith Hits The Festival Circuit

Press Release

The Song of Hiawatha: The Life and High Times Of The First Black Hippie is a feature-length documentary chronicling queer political activist and musician of African-American and Native-American ancestry, Hiawatha Bailey, recognized as the first black hippie.

The film traces Hiawatha’s path as part of the African-American “great migration” from the Deep South to Detroit in the 1950s, “turning on” to LSD and joining a commune in 1965, becoming the only Black member of a revolutionary cadre known as the White Panthers in 1968, serving a four-year prison term, starting a musical outfit in prison, and forming the Cult Heroes, a punk rock band, in 1978.

The cast includes a select array of rockers and activists (two were on the FBI 10 Most Wanted List): Hiawatha Bailey, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Wayne Kramer, John Sinclair, Cheetah Chrome, Niagara Detroit, Ron Ashton, Pun Plamondon, Professor Judson Jeffries, Leni Sinclair, Genie Plamondon, David Fenton, Lawrence Livermore, John Brannon, Maxie Chanel, Jennifer Holiday Chanel, and Deniz Tek. Documents include a letter from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a landmark Supreme Court decision, a contract signed by John Lennon, and many never-before-seen photos dating back beyond the 1960s. The soundtrack features music by The MC5, The Rationals, Cult Heroes, John Brannon’s pre-Negative Approach band Static, and African-American punk rockers Pure Hell, with additional scoring by Elan Portnoy (Fuzztones).

The Song of Hiawatha floats along in a psychedelic haze as it touches on sensitive issues of race, rock, radicalism, sexual identity, prison life, and antiquated drug laws, so smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Can you dig it?

“This film has the potential to tell a different story about the American rock counterculture than the one we are used to hearing.” – James Sclavunos, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

“This film will illuminate fundamental questions about past events by offering a particularly fresh look at the New Left and its complex relationships to culture and society. So doing, it will beckon audiences to join in understanding the complex configuration of elements that compose the American experience.” — Professor Ira Katznelson, History and Political Science, Columbia University

“The film chronicles the activities of the Black Panthers, the White Panthers, FBI surveillance, and how it all came together to shape the character of one counterculture punk rocker.” — Ann Arbor Observer

Producer Biography – Steven Blush

STEVEN BLUSH got his start in the 1980s promoting hardcore punk rock shows in Washington, DC. He published the award-winning Seconds Magazine and served as music editor for the late, great PaperMagazine, where he became the first writer to cover both rock and hip-hop.

His journalism has appeared in over 25 publications, including: Spin, Details, Interview, The Village Voice, and The Times of London. Blush has written ten books about rock and pop culture, culture — American Hardcore (2001), American Hair Metal (2005), .45 Dangerous Minds (2006), American Hardcore: Second Edition (2010), Lost Rockers (2016), New York Rock (2017), American Hair Metal: Can’t Get Enough (2023), and the trilogy of When Rock Met Disco (2023), When Rock Met Reggae (2024) and When Rock Met Hip-Hop (2026) — as well as Bustin’ Balls (2010), about Billie Jean King’s rebel tennis league, currently in television development. He wrote and produced the critically acclaimed, theatrically released, Sundance-premiered documentary film American Hardcore (Sony Pictures Classics, 2006).

JEFFREY WENGROFSKY has made ten short films about figures in the cultural underground of his native Lower East Side of New York, from the Warhol superstar Taylor Mead and anarcho-theater director Judith Malina, to hippie noise lords The Godz. Wengrofsky is also the author of The Wolfboy of Rego Park (Far West Press). The Song of Hiawatha is his first feature film.