Buffy Sainte-Marie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Buffy Sainte-Marie |
Sainte-Marie in 1970
|
| Background information |
| Birth name |
Beverly Sainte-Marie |
| Born |
February 20, 1941
Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada |
| Genres |
Folk, rock, country, electronic |
| Occupation(s) |
Musician, singer-songwriter, composer, record producer, visual artist, educator, social activist, actress, humanitarian |
| Instruments |
Vocals, guitar, mouthbow, piano, ukulele, autoharp, harmonica, percussion |
| Years active |
1963 – current |
| Labels |
Vanguard, Angel, Capitol, Island, MCA, Appleseed, Ensign/Chrysalis |
| Associated acts |
Joni Mitchell, Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen |
| Website |
buffysainte-marie.com |
Buffy Sainte-Marie,
OC (born
Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20, 1941) is a
Native Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist,
[1] educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of
Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire also includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism.
In 1997 she founded the
Cradleboard Teaching Project,
an educational curriculum devoted to better understanding Native
Americans. She has won recognition and many awards and honours for both
her music and her work in education and social activism.
Personal life
Buffy Sainte-Marie was born in 1941
[2][3] on the Piapot
Plains Cree First Nation Reserve in the
Qu'Appelle Valley,
Saskatchewan, Canada.
[4] She was later adopted, growing up in
Massachusetts, with parents Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie.
[5] She attended the
University of Massachusetts Amherst, earning degrees in teaching and Oriental philosophy
[6] and graduating in the top ten of her class.
[7] She went on to earn a Ph.D in Fine Art from the University of Massachusetts.
[8]
In 1964 on a return trip to the Piapot Cree reserve in Canada for a
powwow she was welcomed and (in a Cree Nation context) adopted by the youngest son of Chief
Piapot, Emile Piapot and his wife, who added to Sainte-Marie's cultural value of, and place in, native culture.
[9]
In 1968 she married surfing teacher Dewain Bugbee of Hawaii; they
divorced in 1971. She married Sheldon Wolfchild from Minnesota in 1975;
they have a son, Dakota "Cody" Starblanket Wolfchild. That union also
ended and she married
Jack Nitzsche in the early 1980s. She currently lives in
Hawaii.
[10]
Although not a Bahá'í herself, she became an active friend of the
Bahá'í Faith
by the mid-1970s when she is said to have appeared in the 1973 Third
National Bahá'í Youth Conference at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
[11]
and has continued to appear at concerts, conferences and conventions of
that religion since then. In 1992, she appeared in the musical event
prelude to the
Bahá'í World Congress, a double concert "Live Unity: The Sound of the World" in 1992 with video broadcast and documentary.
[12] In the video documentary of the event Sainte-Marie is seen on the
Dini Petty Show explaining the Bahá'í teaching of
progressive revelation.
[13]
She also appears in the 1985 video "Mona With The Children" by Douglas
John Cameron. However, while she supports a universal sense of religion,
she does not subscribe to any particular religion: "I gave a lot of
support to Bahá'í people in the '80s and '90s … Bahá'í people, as people
of all religions, is something I'm attracted to … I don't belong to any
religion. … I have a huge religious faith or spiritual faith but I feel
as though religion … is the first thing that
racketeers exploit. … But that doesn't turn me against religion …"
[14]:16:15–18:00min
Career
Sainte-Marie played piano and guitar, self-taught, in her childhood
and teen years. In college some of her songs, "Ananias", the Indian
lament, "
Now That the Buffalo's Gone" and "Mayoo Sto Hoon" (in
Hindi) were already in her repertoire.
[6]
1960s
By 1962, in her early twenties, she was touring alone, developing her
craft and performing in various concert halls, folk music festivals and
Native Americans reservations across the United States, 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, such as
Leonard Cohen,
Neil Young, and
Joni Mitchell. (She also introduced Mitchell to Elliot Roberts, who became Joni's manager.)
[9]
Sainte-Marie performing in the Netherlands in the Grand Gala du Disque Populaire 1968
In 1963, recovering from a throat infection, Sainte-Marie became addicted to
codeine and recovering from the experience became the basis of her song "Cod'ine",
[7] later covered by
Donovan,
Janis Joplin,
the Charlatans,
Quicksilver Messenger Service,
Man,
[15] the Litter,
the Leaves,
Jimmy Gilmer,
Gram Parsons,
[16] Charles Brutus McClay,
[17] the Barracudas (spelled "Codeine"),
[18] the Golden Horde,
[19] and later by
Courtney Love. Also in 1963, she witnessed wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam at a time when the U.S. government was denying involvement
[20] – which inspired her protest song, "
Universal Soldier"
[21] which was released on her debut album,
It's My Way on
Vanguard Records in 1964, and later became a hit for Donovan.
[22]
She was subsequently named
Billboard Magazine's Best New Artist. Some of her songs such as "
Now That The Buffalo's Gone" (1964) and "
My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying" (1964, included on her 1966 album) addressing the mistreatment of Native Americans created a lot of controversy at the time.
[5] In 1967, she released
Fire and Fleet and Candlelight, which contained her interpretation of the traditional
Yorkshire dialect song "
Lyke Wake Dirge". Sainte-Marie's other well-known songs 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.
[23] She appeared on
Pete Seeger's
Rainbow Quest with Pete Seeger in 1965 and several Canadian Television productions from the 1960s through to the 1990s,
[9] and other TV shows such as
American Bandstand,
Soul Train,
The Johnny Cash Show and
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson; and sang the opening song "The Circle Game" (written by Joni Mitchell
[9]) in Stuart Hagmann's film
The Strawberry Statement (1970).
In the late 1960s, she used a
Buchla synthesizer to record the album
Illuminations, which did not receive much notice. It was the first totally quadraphonic electronic vocal album ever.
[citation needed]
1970s
In late 1975, Sainte Marie received a phone call from
Sesame Street producer
Dulcy Singer
to appear on the show for a one-shot guest appearance. Sainte-Marie
told Singer she had no interest in doing a children's TV show, but
reconsidered after asking "Have you done any Native American
programming?" According to Sainte-Marie, Singer wanted her to count and
recite the alphabet but Buffy wanted to teach the show's young viewers
that "Indians still exist".
[citation needed] She regularly appeared on
Sesame Street
over a five-year period from 1976–81, along with her first son, Dakota
Starblanket Wolfchild, whom she breast-fed in one episode.
Sesame Street even aired a week of shows from her home in Hawaii in January 1978.
In 1979,
Spirit of the Wind,
featuring Sainte-Marie's original musical score including the song
"Spirit of the Wind", was one of three entries that year at Cannes. The
film is a docudrama about George Attla, the 'winningest dog musher of
all time,' as the film presents him, with all parts played by Native
Americans except one by
Slim Pickens. The film was shown on cable TV in the early 1980s and was released in France in 2003.
[citation needed]
1980s
Sainte-Marie began using
Apple Inc. Apple II[24] and
Macintosh computers as early as 1981 to record her music and later some of her visual art.
[6] The song "
Up Where We Belong" (which Sainte-Marie co-wrote with
Will Jennings and musician
Jack Nitzsche) was performed by
Joe Cocker and
Jennifer Warnes for the film
An Officer and a Gentleman. It received the
Academy Award for
Best Song in 1982. The song was later covered by
Cliff Richard and
Anne Murray on Cliff's album of duets,
Two's Company.
[citation needed]
In the early 1980s one of her native songs was used as the theme song for the
CBC's native series
Spirit Bay. She was cast for the
TNT 1993 telefilm
The Broken Chain. It was shot entirely in
Virginia. In 1989 she wrote and performed the music for
Where the Spirit Lives, a film about native children being abducted and forced into residential schools.
1990s
Buffy Sainte-Marie playing the Peterborough Summer Festival of Lights on June 24, 2009.
Sainte-Marie voiced the Cheyenne character, Kate Bighead, in the 1991 made-for-TV movie
Son of the Morning Star, telling the Indian side of the
Battle of the Little Bighorn, where
Lt. Col. George Custer was killed.
[25]
In 1992, after a sixteen-year recording hiatus, Sainte-Marie released the album
Coincidence and Likely Stories.
[26]
Recorded in 1990 at home in Hawaii on her computer and transmitted via
modem through the early Internet to producer Chris Birkett in London,
England,
[9] the album included the politically charged songs "The Big Ones Get Away" and "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" (which mentions
Leonard Peltier), both commenting on the ongoing plight of Native Americans (see also the book
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.) Also in 1992, Sainte-Marie appeared in the television film
The Broken Chain with
Pierce Brosnan along with First Nations Bahá'í
Phil Lucas. Her next album followed up in 1996 with
Up Where We Belong,
an album on which she re-recorded a number of her greatest hits in more
unplugged and acoustic versions, including a re-release of "
Universal Soldier". Sainte-Marie has exhibited her art 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, New Mexico.
In 1995 Buffy's Music and voice appeared in an episode of HBO's Happily
Ever After, which is an animated cartoon series of fairy tales for
children. Buffy appeared in the episode about Snow White which was also
titled as "White Snow". White Snow is a young Native American Princess
who is saved by a young Native American Prince. Buffy wrote the theme
song and also sings a song and is the voice of the mirror on the wall.
The episode appeared in the first season of Happily Ever After but the
episodes continue to be aired as reruns.
In 1969 she started a philanthropic non-profit fund
Nihewan Foundation for American Indian Education devoted to improving Native American students participation in learning.
[27] She founded the
Cradleboard Teaching Project in October 1996 using funds from her Nihewan Foundation and with a two-year grant from the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation of
Battle Creek, Michigan. With projects across
Mohawk,
Cree,
Ojibwe,
Menominee,
Coeur D'Alene,
Navajo,
Quinault,
Hawaiian, and
Apache communities in eleven states, partnered with a non-native class of the same grade level for Elementary,
Middle,
and High School grades in the disciplines of Geography, History, Social
Studies, Music and Science and produced a multimedia curriculum CD,
Science: Through Native American Eyes.
[28]
2000s
Sainte-Marie performing at The Iron Horse in Northampton, Massachusetts, on June 15, 2013
In 2000, Sainte-Marie gave the commencement address at
Haskell Indian Nations University.
[29] In 2002 she sang at the
Kennedy Space Center for Commander
John Herrington, USN, a
Chickasaw and the first Native American astronaut.
[30] In 2003 she became a spokesperson for the
UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network in Canada.
[31]
In 2002, a track written and performed by Sainte-Marie, 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". In June 2007, she made a rare U.S. appearance at the
Clearwater Festival in
Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
In 2008, a two-CD set titled
Buffy/Changing Woman/Sweet America: The Mid-1970s Recordings was released, compiling the three studio albums that she recorded for
ABC Records and
MCA Records between 1974 and 1976 (after departing her long-time label
Vanguard Records).
This was the first re-release of this material. In September 2008,
Sainte-Marie made a comeback onto the music scene in Canada with the
release of her latest studio album
Running for the Drum. It was produced by Chris Birkett (producer of her 1992 and 1996
best of
albums). Sessions for this latest project commenced in 2006 in
Sainte-Marie's home studio in Hawaii and in part in France. They
continued until spring 2007.
[citation needed]
2010s
Buffy Ste. Marie at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Concert, Ottawa, Canada
In 2015, Sainte-Marie released the album
Power in the Blood on True North Records. She had a television appearance on May 22, 2015 with
Democracy Now! to discuss the record and her musical and activist career.
On September 21, 2015,
Power in the Blood was named the winner of the
2015 Polaris Music Prize.
[32]
Also in 2015,
A Tribe Called Red released an electronic remix of Sainte-Marie's song "Working for the Government".
[33]
Censorship
Sainte-Marie claimed in a 2008 interview at the
National Museum of the American Indian[34] that she had been
blacklisted
by American radio stations and that she, along with Native Americans
and other native people in the Red Power movements, were put out of
business in the 1970s.
[35]
In a 1999 interview at
Diné College with a staff writer with the
Indian Country Today, Sainte-Marie said "I found out 10 years later, in the 1980s, that President
Lyndon B. Johnson
had been writing letters on White House stationery praising radio
stations for suppressing my music" and "In the 1970s, not only was the
protest movement put out of business, but the Native American movement
was attacked."
[36] According to the staffer, the article was initially censored by
Indian Country Today, and finally published only in part in 2006.
[citation needed]
As a result of this blacklisting led by (among others) Presidents
Lyndon Johnson and
Richard Nixon,
FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover, and
Nashville disc jockey
Ralph Emery (following the release of
I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again), Sainte-Marie said "I was put out of business in the United States".
Honours and awards
- Americana Music Honors & Awards - Spirit of Americana/Free Speech in Music Award (2015)
- Polaris Music Prize (2015)
- Honorary Doctor – University of British Columbia (2012)
- Honorary Doctor – Wilfrid Laurier University (2010)
- Honorary Doctor – Ontario College of Art and Design (2010)
- Honorary Doctor of Laws – University of Regina (1996)
- Honorary Doctor of Humanities – University of Saskatchewan (2003)
- Honorary Doctor of Letters – Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design – (2007)[37]
- Honorary Doctor of Letters – Lakehead University (2000)
- Honorary Doctor of Laws – Carleton University (2008)[38]
- Honorary Doctor of Music – University of Western Ontario (2009)
- Honorary Doctor of Letters – Wilfrid Laurier – Letters (2010)
- Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts – Ontario College of Art and Design (2010)[39]
- Honorary Doctor of Letters – University of British Columbia (2012)
- Academy Award for Best Original Song - "Up Where We Belong" (1983)
- Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song - "Up Where We Belong" (1983)
- BAFTA Award for Best Original Song Written for a Film - "Up Where We Belong" (1983)
- Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts – University of Massachusetts (1983)
- Governor General's Performing Arts Award (2010)[40]
- Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame (2009)
- Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement
- American Indian College Fund Lifetime Achievement
- Charles de Gaulle Award (France)
- Best International Artist (France; 1993)
- Sistina Award (Italy)[when?]
- Star on Canada's Walk of Fame (1998)
- Officer of the Order of Canada
- JUNO Award for Up Where We Belong (1997)
- JUNO Award for Running for the Drum (2009)
- JUNO Hall of Fame
- Gemini Award for Best Performance in a Television Special (1996 variety special, Up Where We Belong)
- Dove Award (Gospel; 1997)
Other
Discography
Albums
[26]
Singles
| Year |
Single |
Peak chart positions |
Album |
| CAN |
CAN AC |
US |
UK[43] |
AUS |
| 1970 |
"Circle Game" |
76 |
— |
109 |
— |
83 |
Fire & Fleet & Candlelight |
| 1971 |
"Soldier Blue" |
— |
— |
— |
7 |
— |
She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina |
| "I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again" |
86 |
— |
98 |
34 |
— |
I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again |
| 1972 |
"Mister Can't You See" |
21 |
— |
38 |
— |
70 |
Moonshot |
| "He's an Indian Cowboy in the Rodeo" |
— |
— |
98 |
— |
— |
| 1974 |
"Waves" |
— |
27 |
— |
— |
— |
Buffy |
| 1992 |
"The Big Ones Get Away" |
24 |
14 |
— |
39 |
— |
Coincidence & Likely Stories |
| "Fallen Angels" |
50 |
26 |
— |
57 |
— |
| 1996 |
"Until It's Time for You to Go" |
— |
54 |
— |
— |
— |
Up Where We Belong |
| 2008 |
"No No Keshagesh" |
— |
— |
— |
— |
— |
Running For The Drum |
[26]
See also
References
In 1963, recovering from a throat infection, Sainte-Marie became addicted to codeine and recovering from the experience became the basis of her song "Cod'ine",[7] later covered by Donovan, Janis Joplin, the Charlatans, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Man,[15] the Litter, the Leaves, Jimmy Gilmer, Gram Parsons,[16] Charles Brutus McClay,[17] the Barracudas (spelled "Codeine"),[18] the Golden Horde,[19] and later by Courtney Love. Also in 1963, she witnessed wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam at a time when the U.S. government was denying involvement[20] – which inspired her protest song, "Universal Soldier"[21] which was released on her debut album, It's My Way on Vanguard Records in 1964, and later became a hit for Donovan.[22]Sainte-Marie performing in the Netherlands in the Grand Gala du Disque Populaire 1968
Sainte-Marie voiced the Cheyenne character, Kate Bighead, in the 1991 made-for-TV movie Son of the Morning Star, telling the Indian side of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Lt. Col. George Custer was killed.[25]Buffy Sainte-Marie playing the Peterborough Summer Festival of Lights on June 24, 2009.
In 2000, Sainte-Marie gave the commencement address at Haskell Indian Nations University.[29] In 2002 she sang at the Kennedy Space Center for Commander John Herrington, USN, a Chickasaw and the first Native American astronaut.[30] In 2003 she became a spokesperson for the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network in Canada.[31]Sainte-Marie performing at The Iron Horse in Northampton, Massachusetts, on June 15, 2013
In 2015, Sainte-Marie released the album Power in the Blood on True North Records. She had a television appearance on May 22, 2015 with Democracy Now! to discuss the record and her musical and activist career.Buffy Ste. Marie at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Concert, Ottawa, Canada
No comments:
Post a Comment