Buffy Sainte-Marie

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Buffy Sainte-Marie
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Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie (born February 20, 1941) is an Academy Award-winning Canadian First Nations musician, composer, visual artist, educator and social activist.

She was born on the Piapot Cree reserve in the Qu'Appelle valley, Saskatchewan. She was later adopted and grew up in Maine and Massachusetts. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from the University of Massachusetts and also holds degrees in both Oriental Philosophy and teaching.

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[edit] Early career

By 1962, having graduated, Buffy began to tour alone, developing her craft and performing in various concert halls, folk festivals and Native reservations across the U.S, Canada and abroad. She spent a considerable amount of time in the coffeehouses of downtown Toronto's old Yorkville district, and New York City's Greenwich Village as part of the early to mid-1960s folk scene, often alongside other emerging Canadian contemporaries Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.

She quickly earned a reputation as a gifted songwriter, and many of her earliest songs, such as "Until It's Time For You To Go", were turned into hits by other artists including Barbra Streisand, Elvis Presley, Sonny and Cher, Chet Atkins, Roberta Flack, Janis Joplin and Neil Diamond, among others.

Her debut album, It's My Way, was released on Vanguard Records in 1964 and she was subsequently named Billboard Magazine's Best New Artist. This album also contained the critically acclaimed protest song "Universal Soldier" that later became a hit for Donovan.

In 1967 she released the album Fire and Fleet and Candlelight which contained probably the definitive interpretation of the traditional song "Lyke Wake Dirge", and the hit "Now that the Buffalo's Gone", a protest over broken treaties with First nations people. Sainte-Marie's other well-known songs as a performer include "Mister Can't You See" (a Top 40 U.S. hit in 1972), "He's An Indian Cowboy In The Rodeo", and the theme song of the popular movie "Soldier Blue".

In the late sixties, she used a Buchla synthesizer to record the album "Illuminations," but it didn't get much notice. "People were more in love with the Pocahontas-with-a-guitar image," she said in a 1998 interview.

She married musician Jack Nitzsche in 1969, and regularly appeared on the children's TV series Sesame Street over a five year period from 1976 - 1981, with her son Dakota Starblanket Wolfchild.

The song "Up Where We Belong" (which she co-wrote with Will Jennings and Jack Nitzsche) as performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for the film An Officer and A Gentleman, received the Academy Award for Best Song in 1982.

In 1992, she appeared in the television movie The Broken Chain with Pierce Brosnan.

[edit] Later Career

In 1992, after a sixteen year recording hiatus, Buffy released the album Coincidence and Likely Stories. Recorded at home on her computer, the album contained the politically charged songs "The Big Ones Get Away" and "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee", both regarding the on-going plight of Native Americans. She followed up in 1996 with Up Where We Belong, an album in which she re-recorded a number of her greatest hits in more unplugged and acoustic versions, including "Universal Soldier".

A gifted digital artist, her creations have been displayed at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Emily Carr Gallery in Vancouver and the American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe.

In 2004, a track written and performed by her entitled "Lazarus" was sampled by Hip Hop producer Kanye West and performed by Cam'Ron and Jim Jones of The Diplomats. The track is called "Dead or Alive".

She is an active member of the Baha'i Faith.

[edit] Censorship

Sainte-Marie has claimed she was blacklisted and, along with other American Indians in the Red Power movements, was put out of business in the 1970s.

"I found out 10 years later, in the 1980s, that [President] Lyndon Johnson had been writing letters on White House stationary praising radio stations for suppressing my music," Sainte-Marie said in a 1999 interview with Indian Country Today at Dine' College... "In the 1970's, not only was the protest movement put out of business, but the Native American movement was attacked."

Additionally, she claims that in the United States, her records were disappearing. Thousands of people at concerts wanted records. Although the distributor said the records had been shipped, no one seemed to know where they were. One thing was for sure: They were not on record store shelves.

"I was put out of business in the United States."

The validity of Buffy's claims are questionable as there is no physical evidence of her censorship. "Universal Soldier" was first recorded in 1964; Johnson was President from 1964 to 1969--a time when protest music and counterculture music filled the American airwaves. While it wouldn't be entirely out of character for him, this kind of action seems a bit of a stretch. Richard Nixon (of whom these accusations could more easily be believed) was president from 1969-74.

[edit] Awards and Honors

France named Buffy Sainte-Marie Best International Artist of 1993. That same year, she was selected by the United Nations to officially proclaim the International Year of Indigenous People.

Buffy was inducted into the Juno Hall of Fame for her life-long contribution to music in 1995 and won a Gemini Award in 1997 for the Canadian TV special Buffy Sainte-Marie: Up Where We Belong. This also marked the first time she had performed her famous song to a live audience.

She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation in Canada in 1998, and was also made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

In 1999, she was inducted and received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.

[edit] Album discography

  • It’s My Way, 1964
  • Many A Mile, 1965
  • Little Wheel Spin and Spin, 1966
  • Fire & Fleet & Candlelight, 1967
  • I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again, 1968
  • Illuminations, 1969
  • The Best Of Buffy Sainte-Marie, 1970
  • The Best Of Buffy Sainte-Marie Vol.2, 1971
  • She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina, 1971
  • Moonshot, 1972
  • Quiet Places, 1973
  • Native North American Child: An Odyssey, 1974
  • Buffy, 1974
  • Changing Woman, 1975
  • Sweet America, 1976
  • Coincidence and Likely Stories, 1992
  • Up Where We Belong, 1996
  • The Best of the Vanguard Years, 2003
  • Live at Carnegie Hall, 2004

[edit] External links

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