Occasionally, those with extraordinary creative talent, some call it genius, are cursed by madness. This cliché is personified in Peter LaFarge, a songwriting phenom who influenced a generation of folk artists from Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan to Buffy Sainte Marie and Cisco Houston. A man defined by writing Native protest songs when he wasn’t Native himself. A man swallowed by psychosis and addictions until he died way too young in 1965.

Who was he?  Who was Peter LaFarge?

Clouded by generations of lies and lore, we will probably never know for sure. But we are a whole lot closer than ever before, thanks to Sandra Hale Schulman’s documentary The Ballad of Peter LaFarge.

Few today, even the savviest music fans, recognize his name yet his impact is etched permanently in contemporary folk music. The reality of how the son of an heiress and Pulitzer Prize winning author transformed into an ersatz-Native-bohemian-actor-rodeo star-folkie is infinitely more compelling than Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash or, God help us, Cate Blanchett and Richard Gere doing Dylan.

Through copious research, and a tight, lyrical narrative, we are introduced to LaFarge—strikingly good-looking, emotionally and artistically dangerous, and, we learn, plagued by a tragic family legacy that continues more than 40 years after his death. Originally a 13-minute short, Schulman’s film has been expanded to nearly a half-hour to include a vintage Johnny Cash interview and other footage. His best known song, popularized by Cash, was the “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” about the Pima Indian immortalized in the Iwo Jima flag-raising photo.

He wrote cowboy songs, he wrote love songs. But it was his ballads about Indians that define his best work—his albums As Long as the Grass Shall Grow  and On the Warpath  focus on Native themes with titles including “Johnny Half-breed,” “Damn Redskins,” “Vision of a Past Warrior,” “Custer,” and more. A former reporter for Indian Country Today, journalist Schulman became intrigued with LaFarge while researching Cash and seeing his name appear over and over. 

Who was he?  Who was Peter LaFarge?

The fact he wasn’t Native is never clarified in the documentary with the opening narrative even describing him as "the first Native American to gain national prominence as a songwriter." This is the film’s major weakness. Tap dancing around his true ethnicity is confusing at best—at worst, it perpetuates the deceit LaFarge foisted on his fans and friends alike. The reason, Schulman explains, is to focus more on the man and his music and not that he was, for lack of a better word, a "wannabe." Nevertheless, it was a capricious device that distracted from an otherwise remarkable story.

Poser or not, crazy as a March Hare, Peter LaFarge wrote some damn important and good music. Damn important and good music about the state of Native Americans in 20th century America.

Who was he?  Who was Peter LaFarge?

We may never really know, but in The Ballad of Peter LaFarge, at least his legacy is finally understood.

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FASCINATING (MUST SEE)  FILM CLIPS!…

• First, rare footage from 1960’s interview with (a clearly stoned) Johnny Cash singing LaFarge's "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow"
  
• Cash singing “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” to a Native audience
  
• The Ballad of Peter LaFarge film trailer

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The Ballad of Peter LaFarge  has been screening at film festivals throughout North America for much of the past year. It is currently being pitched to major television and cable networks for a future broadcast. For more information, please visit Sandra Hale Schulman's site: www.peterlafarge.com