Buffy Sainte-Marie

From the 1940’s to the 1960’s, America was swept by the Folk Revival that not only brought traditional folk music back into the spotlight but encouraged artist to re-define what songwriting meant. Pioneers of the movement include artists like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Lead Belly who all performed in New York. The city provided a nourishing environment for later artists, like the famous Bob Dylan, to experiment with their writing and become what are now know today as singer-songwriters. Of the first singer-songwriters in the 1960s, there was one female artist. Her name: Buffy Sainte-Marie. An indigenous Canadian artist, Buffy Sainte-Marie challenged her audience to hear the stories in her songs and consider the “blind spots” in our history.

Born in 1941, Sainte-Marie lived on the Piapot 75 reserve, a native reserve in Saskatchewan. She was taken from her family around the age of two in what is now referred to as “the Big Scoop.” Also known as the sixties scoop, this government policy took indigenous children from their homes and families and placed them in white homes. As a result, many of those children don’t know their birthdays or much about their family, including Buffy Sainte-Marie. She was adopted by an American couple from Massachusetts with Mi'kmaq decent.

Buffy Sainte-Marie displayed a passion for music from a young age, teaching herself to play the piano around three years old. Her brother was enrolled in music classes, and she would wait for his lesson to end to practice improvisation on the instrument. Sainte-Marie never took music classes or learned to read music but instead taught herself to play through improvisation, using it as an emotional outlet. She exhibited the typical folk artist trait of lacking formal music training. In fact, years later Sainte-Marie identified herself as “Musically Dyslexic,” a term she learned from Berklee College of Music.

While in college, Marie became increasingly inspired by her philosophical studies and she began incorporating her newly acquired knowledge into her music and songs. Her first performances where for friends in her dorm and her housemother, Theresa de Kerpely, who encouraged her to present her music to greater audiences. Combining her life and college experiences into inspirations, Sainte-Marie built a small repertoire of music and began performing at local coffeehouses in the Boston area. In 1963 Buffy Sainte-Marie moved to New York and continued playing coffeehouses now in Greenwich Village. The same year, Sainte-Marie wrote the protest anthem “Universal Soldier.”

“I wrote “Universal Soldier” in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It’s about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all." - Buffy Sainte-Marie

While the song did not immediately chart the popular hits, it gathered attention from a large portion of the folk music community. “Universal Soldier” appeared on her debut album It’s My Way!

The album It’s My Way! was released in 1964 and lasted thirty-nine minutes and forty-five seconds. Powerful and emotional, the album addresses war, drugs, and sex and advocates for indigenous rights. While received well by some audiences, her songs sparked controversy among others for their activist themes. The first track, “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone,” references the near extinction of the American Bison as a metaphor for the cultural elimination of Native population’s perpetrated by the Europeans. Sainte-Marie hoped this song would not only highlight the suffering of her people, but the beauty of her culture.

 “This song was on my first album and I’d have thought it would be obsolete by now. But governments are still breaking promises and stealing indigenous lands, and I still believe that informed people can help make things better." -Buffy Sainte-Marie

One of her most popular songs, “Cod’ine,” is also featured on this album. Sainte-Marie wrote the song after struggling with a codeine addiction and conveys the horrific reality of drug dependance. The track is a solo vocal performance backed with her playing a twelve-string guitar. While the album did not hit the album charts, It’s My Way! struck audiences with an emotional intensity that captivates listeners even decades later

After capturing the folk communities attention with her debut album, Buffy Sainte-Marie continued to create captivating music that spread across genres and further highlighted her unique songwriting abilities.

Her second album, Many a Mile, was released in 1965. This album contained several child ballads, traditional ballads from Scotland and England, and more traditional material. Her arguably most famous love song, "Until it's Time for You to Go," also came from the album and was later covered by several artist including Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, and Elvis Presley.

Her third album, Little Wheel Spin and Spin, was released in 1966 and was her only album that reached a Top 100 spot on the Billboard 200. The album’s most recognized song, “My Country ‘Tis of Thy People You’re Dying,” conveyed a native perspective of North American colonization. The song highlights how little progress the indigenous community has made in the fight for their human rights. Little Wheel Spin and Spin also presented listeners with an alternative sound to her typical acoustic guitar style. On the album, Sainte-Marie experimented with the use of electric guitar played by Bruce Langhorne and string arrangements composed by Felix Pappalardi. The album paved the way for her future albums to cross further into other genres like rock and country.

In 1969, Buffy Sainte-Marie became a pioneer of electronic music and released her sixth album, Illuminations. It was the first album to use the Buchla 100 synthesizer, an instrument that could electrically modify sound, to process her vocals. The album, comprised almost entirely of just her synthesized vocals and guitar, produced a unique sound that incorporated genres like pop, rock, folk, and indigenous styles. The album’s disorienting sounds have also been cited as a precursor to gothic music

In 1981, Sainte-Marie co-wrote “Up Where We Belong” with lyricist Will Jennings and composer Jack Nitzsche as the theme for the film “An Officer and a Gentleman.” The song received the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and a BAFTA award for Best Original Song. In 1982, the song received the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and she became the first native woman to ever win an Oscar. In fact, until 2019, Sainte-Marie was the only indigenous person to win an Oscar.

“You have this moment where there’s this enormous smash hit that get all kinds of recognition, wins an Oscar. You knew she was a force. She was a different kind of artist.” - George Stroumboulopoulos (Music Journalist, Activist, Actor)

   Buffy Sainte-Marie was not only one of the first female singer-songwriters in the 1960s, but she redefined what the term meant. She used her talent to address indigenous struggles, create hard hitting protest music, and pioneer new sounds. Sainte-Marie drew on her difficult past and life experiences to inspire others while advocating for change in the world. Her music, songs written even 60 years ago, remains relevant. From social movements to developing music and genres in North America, Buffy Saint-Marie’s influence leaves an everlasting footprint.