Buffy Sainte-Marie

Infobox musical artist 2
Name =Buffy Sainte-Marie


Background = solo_singer,
Birth_name =Beverly Sainte-Marie
Born = birth date and age|1941|20|2
Origin = Flagicon|Canada Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada
Genre = folk music, rock music, country music, electronic music
Associated_acts =
Occupation = Singer, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, educator, social activist
Years_active = 1960–present (singer)
Label = Vanguard Records, Angel Records, Capitol, Island,
URL = [http://www.creative-native.com/ Official website]

Buffy Sainte-Marie (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20, 1941 or this date in 1942) [cite web | url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/64/Buffy-Sainte-Marie.html | publisher=Film Reference | title=Buffy Sainte-Marie Biography (1941-) | accessdate=2008-06-10 Some sources suggest 1942.] [cite web | url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0003082 | publisher="The Canadian Encyclopedia" | accessdate=2008-06-10 | title=Saint-Marie, Buffy | first=Betty | last=Nygaard King This source indicates 1941 or 1942.] is an Academy Award-winning Canadian First Nations musician, composer, visual artist, pacifist [ [http://www.creative-native.com/biograp.htm Buffy Saint-Marie biography] ] educator and social activist.

Personal life

Buffy Sainte-Marie was born August 2, 1941 on the Piapot Cree Indian reserve in the Qu'Appelle River Qu'Appelle valley, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was orphaned and later adopted and grew up in Maine and with parents Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie who were related to her biological parents. [ [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0803247877&id=f1bkxh3NVbIC&pg=PA547&lpg=PA547&ots=fhP7uKLS6t&dq=%22buffy+sainte-marie%22&sig=OrBLXyhEktYOu7J7oLIw4beDm7M Encyclopedia of the Great Plains] entry by Paula Conlon, University of Oklahoma, edited by David J Wishart.] From the University of Massachusetts she holds degrees in teaching and Oriental Philosophy [http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/moonshot/buffysaintemarie/page4.html Buffy Sainte-Marie biography at www.buffysaintemarie.co.uk] ] graduating in the top ten of her class [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0825128536&id=v1999R6lT2AC&pg=RA1-PA111&lpg=RA1-PA111&ots=5beFfo-wd5&dq=%22buffy+sainte-marie%22&sig=iqt3eJ3SFAhJvR_gQSADyPwmnIM 45 Profiles in Modern Music] by E. Churchill and Linda Churchill p.110-112.] and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Fine Arts. 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, Imu Piapot and his wife who added to Sainte-Marie's cultural value of and place in First Nations culture."Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Multimedia Life (Director's Cut)" DVD, distributed by Filmwest Associates of Canada and the US, [http://www.filmwest.com] , 2006]

In 1968 she married surfing teacher Dewain Bugbee of Hawaii. They divorced in 1971. She married Sheldon Wolfchild from Minnesota in 1975, and they have a son, Dakota "Cody" Starblanket Wolfchild. She married Jack Nitzsche in the early 1980s. Sainte-Marie has been in a committed relationship with Hawaiian Chuck Wilson since 1993, ("A blond boy raised in a tan community" as Sainte-Marie says). She currently lives on Kauai [ [http://www.nysun.com/comments/29841 Buffy fans Tarantino and Morrissey - Reader comments at The New York Sun ] ] .

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 Baha’i Youth Conference" at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, Oklahoma City, OK, with several artists including Seals & Crofts and has continued to appear at concerts, conferences and conventions of that religion since then. In 1992 Sainte-Marie 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. [ [http://info.bahai.org/article-1-9-2-2.html Bahá'ís and the Arts: Language of the Heart] by Ann Boyles, also published in 1994-95 edition of "The Bahá'í World", pp. 243-272.] In the video documentary of the event Sainte-Marie is seen on the "Dini Petty Show" explaining the Bahá'í Faith teaching of Progressive Revelation. ["Live Unity:The Sound of the World" A Concert Documentary, VCR Video, distributed by Unity Arts Inc., of Canada, © Live Unity Enterprises, Inc., 1992]

In 1996 she received an honourary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Regina in Canada. In 2007 she received an honourary Doctor of Letters from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. [ [http://www.cradleboard.org/2000/press.html Cradleboard Biography of Buffy Sainte-Marie] ] On 13 June 2008, she received an honourary Doctor of Laws degree from Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada [cite web | url=http://www.carleton.ca/duc/newsroom/archive/2008/june5.html | title=Human rights activists to be honoured at Spring Convocation (news release) | accessdate=2008-06-13 | date=5 June 2008 | publisher=Carleton University ]

Early 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.

By 1962, in her early twenties, Sainte-Marie was touring 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, such as Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell (including introducing her to manager Eliot Roberts), and Neil Young.

She quickly earned a reputation as a gifted songwriter, and many of her earliest songs were covered, and often turned into hits, by other artists, including Chet Atkins, Janis Joplin, Taj Mahal and others. One of her most popular songs, "Until It's Time for You to Go", has been recorded by artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, Roberta Flack, Cher, and Bobby Darin, while "Piney Wood Hills" was made into a country hit by Bobby Bare.

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", later covered by Donovan, The Charlatans, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the songwriter Charles Brutus McClay [Charles Brutus McClay - "Bottled in France", released 1970 by CBS France, cat.nr.64478] . Also in 1963 Sainte-Marie witnessed wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam at a time when the U.S. government was denying involvement - this inspired her protest song "Universal Soldier" [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0312200579&id=9SiONFzWde0C&pg=PA528&lpg=PA528&ots=rmpzaCxcpM&dq=%22buffy+sainte-marie%22&sig=E1W6qGcYYFXqa2pBXR8umShjmuw Folk and Blues: The Premier Encyclopedia of American Roots Music] By Irwin Stambler, Lyndon Stambler, p. 528-530] which was released on her debut album, "It's My Way" on Vanguard Records in 1964, and later became a hit for Donovan. She was subsequently named Billboard Magazine's Best New Artist.

In 1967, Sainte-Marie released the album "Fire and Fleet and Candlelight," which contained her interpretation of the traditional 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". Perhaps her first appearance on TV was as herself on "To Tell the Truth" in January 1966. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0724292/ "To Tell the Truth" Episode dated 24 January 1966] ] . She also appeared on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest with Pete Seeger" in 1965 and several Canadian Television productions from the 1960s through to the 1990s

In the late sixties, Sainte-Marie used a Buchla synthesizer to record the album "Illuminations", which did not receive much notice. "People were more in love with the Pocahontas-with-a-guitar image," she commented in a 1998 interview.

She sang the opening song "The Circle Game" (written by Joni Mitchell) in Stuart Hagmann's film "The Strawberry Statement" (1970). Sainte-Marie regularly appeared on the children's TV series "Sesame Street" over a five year period from 1976 - 1981, along with her first son, Dakota Starblanket Wolfchild whom she breast fed in one episode. She also began using Apple Inc. Apple II [ [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_n5_v37/ai_12287153 Names under the sun: Buffy Sainte-Marie - multi-awarded native American singer makes a comeback] Los Angeles Business Journal, May, 1992 by Michael Logan] and Macintosh computers as early as 1981 to record her music and later some of her visual art.

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".

In the early 1980s one of her inspirational native songs was used as the theme song for the CBC's Native American series Spirit Bay. She was casted for the TNT 1993 telefilm "The Broken Chain". It was shot entirely in Virginia.

Later career

In 1992, after a sixteen-year recording hiatus, Sainte-Marie released the album "Coincidence and Likely Stories". 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, 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 movie "The Broken Chain" with Pierce Brosnan along with fellow 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".

A gifted digital artist, 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.

She founded the Cradleboard Teaching Project in October 1996, from 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-First Nations 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". [ [http://www.cradleboard.org/2000/history.html Cradleboard History] by Buffy Sainte-Marie]

In 2000, Sainte-Marie gave the commencement address at Haskell Indian Nations University. [ [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_20000513/ai_n11747327 New generation of Haskell family honored] Topeka Capital-Journal, The, May 13, 2000 by Andrea Albright Capital-Journal] In 2002 she sang at the Kennedy Space Center for Commander John Herrington,USN, a Chicasaw and the first Native American astronaut. [ [http://www.mouthbow.org/buffycape.html posted at the Youth Council on Race site] by Buffy Sainte-Marie] In 2003 she became a spokesperson for the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network in Canada. [ [http://www.cradleboard.org/press/unesco.html Nihewan Foundation For Native American Education Cradleboard Teaching Project] ]

In 2004, a track written and performed by her and 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, Sainte-Marie made a rare United States appearance at the Clearwater Festival in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.

In 2008, Buffy is set to make a comeback onto the music scene with the release of her latest studio album "Running For The Drum" which is produced by Chris Birkett (producer of her critically acclaimed 1992 and 1996 "Best of" albums). Sessions for this latest project commenced in 2006 in Buffy's home studio in Hawaii and in part in France. They continued until spring 2007.

Another significant CD release due in 2008 is a 2CD set that digitally debuts Buffy's three obscure studio albums that she recorded for ABC Records and MCA Records between 1974 and 1976 (after departing her long-time label Vanguard Records). The CD re-issue of the songs from these lushly orchestrated and emotive albums will act as the missing jigsaw piece to Buffy's back catalogue which has to date been well serviced. The new CD set is titled "Buffy/Changing Woman/Sweet America: The Mid-1970s Recordings".

Censorship

Sainte-Marie has claimed that she was blacklisted and that she, along with other Native Americans 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 B. Johnson had been writing letters on White House stationery praising radio stations for suppressing my music," Sainte-Marie said in a 1999 interview with Indian Country Today at Diné College... "In the 1970s, 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. According to her, thousands of people at concerts wanted records, and although the distributor claimed that the records had been shipped, no one seemed to know where they were.

Said Sainte-Marie, "I was put out of business in the United States."

Awards and Honours

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

Sainte-Marie 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 received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.

Discography

Albums

* "It's My Way!", 1964
* "Many a Mile", 1965
* "Little Wheel Spin and Spin", 1966 (US#97)
* "Fire & Fleet & Candlelight", 1967 (US#126)
* "I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again", 1968 (US#171)
* "Illuminations", 1969
* "Performance (film soundtrack)" (1970)
* "The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie", 1970 (US#142)
* "The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie Vol.2", 1971
* "She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina", 1971 (US#182)
* "Moonshot", 1972 (US#134)
* "Quiet Places", 1973
* "Native North American Child: An Odyssey", 1974
* "Buffy", 1974 (Issued on CD June 2008)**
* "Changing Woman", 1975 (Issued on CD June 2008)**
* "Sweet America", 1976 (Issued on CD June 2008)**
* "Coincidence and Likely Stories", 1992 (UK#39)
* "Up Where We Belong", 1996
* "The Best of the Vanguard Years", 2003
* "Live at Carnegie Hall", Not Issued
* "Buffy/Changing Woman/Sweet America: The Mid-1970s Recordings", 2008
* "Running For The Drum", 2008

ingles

References

First Nations University of Canada Professor and a Cree-Saulteaux of the Muscowpetung First Nation Blair Stonechild ( [http://www.sicc.sk.ca/faces/mstonbl.htm Aboriginal Faces of Saskatchewan] and [http://msupress.msu.edu/authorbio.php?authorID=2364 Michigan State University Press] ) is credited as being her biographer in "Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Multimedia Life" DVD, distributed by Filmwest Associates of Canada and the US.

External links

* [http://cinefocus.com/public/television/buffy.htm Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Multimedia Life, documentary produced by CineFocus-Paquin Pictures]
* [http://www.creative-native.com/ Official website]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0756763/ Internet Movie Database Entry]
* [http://www.cradleboard.org Buffy Sainte-Marie's Cradleboard Teaching Project]
* [http://www.buffysaintemarie.co.uk/ www.buffysaintemarie.co.uk]
* [http://www.cshvof.com/buffy/ Tribute Site]
* [http://www.mouthbow.org/ Mouthbows to Cyberskins]
* [http://heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.3.PAINT.BUFFY.htm Buffy Sainte Marie, Heyoka Magazine Paintings]