Say the name Redbone and only one song comes to mind for most: Come & Get Your Love, a Top 10 hit in 1974.

But it turns out that wasn't the song the history-making Native American group wanted the public to hear. It came at a time when what were then termed "Indians" were in the midst of a battle at Wounded Knee, a seminal event in Indigenous history in the U.S. Their choice was a protest song called "We Were All Wounded At Wounded Knee," a protest song that CBS Records refused to release in America. 

So the more gentle "Come & Get Your Love" was chosen instead and it became the only real hit for brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas.  But when it came to 'come and get your royalties,' that was a source of fraternal friction. 

"As Pat Vegas tells it, he and his brother worked on "Come and Get Your Love" late one night in Philadelphia, where they were performing a series of gigs. It was finished the next day.

"In his memoir, Pat claims that the song was co-written by the two of them, but that Lolly claimed sole credit for it with the label. He writes that while he was "appalled" and "furious" with his brother, he chose to stay silent, believing that raising a stink would hurt Redbone's reputation. When I asked how the disagreement affected their relationship, he says, "We got over it."

50 years ago, 'Come and Get Your Love' put Native culture on the bandstand