Bankie Banx: King of the Dune
“I met Bob Marley a couple of times. Bankie’s kind of the Eastern Caribbean version of that to me.” – Jimmy Buffett
Bankie Banx: King of the Dune celebrates the colorful life and music of the Anguillian singer-songwriter known by many as “the Bob Dylan of the Caribbean.” Growing up on an undeveloped island where necessity often dictated life choices, young Clement Banks dared to dream of becoming a professional musician. He honed his skills playing in dance bands, voraciously soaking up everything from British top 40 and reggae to Rastafarianism and the anti-colonial Pan-Africanism of Walter Rodney. In 1978 he released his genre-defying first album Bankie Banx and his Roots & Herbs, and his breakout hit “Prince of Darkness” put both Bankie and Anguilla on the map. Jimmy Buffett and Bob Dylan sailed ashore to jam. Reggae Sunsplash booked the band in a lineup of Jamaica’s biggest artists. But the islands were too limited for Bankie’s musical ambitions, and in 1984 he set off for new horizons.
After a decade of touring in Europe and the US and pushing back on industry executives determined to pigeonhole his sound, Bankie returned to his beloved Anguilla and created the Moonsplash Music Festival (now in its fourth decade) and the Dune Preserve, a beach bar and performance venue crafted from driftwood and repurposed objects where Bankie presides as pirate king of a de facto autonomous zone. World class musicians and audiences now come to him. With a guitar in one hand and a joint or whiskey in the other, Bankie Banx continues to make music and (mostly) good trouble while enjoying a degree of self-determination most artists only dream of. He is the King of the Dune.
Director Nara Garber
Run time 118 minutes.
Filmmaker may be in attendance.