Buffy Sainte-Marie's pioneering career to be honoured with a Gov. Gen. award
http://www.kbsradio.ca/news/55/1122946
Apr 28, 2010
By: Jennifer Ditchburn
OTTAWA - The first temptation when describing Buffy Sainte-Marie is
to tabulate her A-list of accolades and accomplishments.
Things like her iconic '60's anti-war anthem "Universal Soldier,"
winning the Oscar for co-writing the '80's soundtrack hit "Up Where
we Belong," breastfeeding her son on screen for "Sesame Street" or
crossing paths over the years with folk luminaries the likes of Bob
Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.
But what Sainte-Marie managed to achieve away from the stage or red
carpet, usually completely alone, is a major part of why her career
is being celebrated this week with a Governor General's Performing Arts Award.
She calls it her double life, shuttling between the spotlight and
sometimes virtually invisible aboriginal communities across North America.
"I was appearing in Carnegie Hall one night and, after the concert
would be done, I'd go up to Akwesasne (Mohawk reserve) on the New
York-Ontario border," she said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"It became my modus operandi for the way my life has been. I've
always been a bridge between two cultures, and very happily so."
Sainte-Marie made a career out of bringing awareness of the
aboriginal way of life and its struggles to the mainstream, making
her one of the world's best known aboriginal artists in the process.
She was born in Saskatchewan in 1942 but was adopted and brought up
in Maine by relatives of her deceased parents. She graduated from the
University of Massachusetts Amherst, where her majors were teaching,
religion and oriental studies.
In her 20's, she took her guitar and her songs and made to New York
City's Greenwich Village, landing in the coffeehouses at what turned
out to be the perfect time. There was immediate interest in her
songwriting, her distinctive vibrato voice and her cultural
background. Her career took flight.
But even in the non-conformist sixties, Sainte-Marie didn't exactly
fit in with the rest of the folkie crowd.
"I was never a part of that social group. The Judys and the Jonis and
the Bobbys who were around in the '60s were very much a part of a
mainstream big money management cohort," she recalled.
"There was a lot of protection there, a lot of money support, travel
support, record company support, but I was a one-man band from the weeds."
That one-man band did make money however, especially from major hits
like "Universal Soldier" and "Until it's Time for you to Go," the
latter covered by the likes of Elvis Presley and Barbra Streisand.
Sainte-Marie used that money to travel to aboriginal communities in
Canada and the United States. She worked closely with the burgeoning
American Indian Movement and used her celebrity to put songs with
aboriginal content on her albums "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"
was one of many.
"My songs were really thought out, like somebody who is trying to
write a college thesis for a professor that didn't like them. I
worked very hard on certain songs to make them clear and accurate and
engaging," she said.
"I wanted to give people Indian 101 in three minutes and, hopefully,
they would love it. That was my contribution to trying to get the
world interested in the issues that I was supporting as a loner."
Sainte-Marie is pushing 70 but still putting out albums the latest,
"Running for the Drum" and is still painting, teaching and
exploring the possibilities of digital art.
Long before the world embraced the iPod, digital music production or
even email, Sainte-Marie was experimenting with anything she could
get her hands on. "Thank God the world woke up," she added, talking
lovingly of the first Macintosh computer she bought in the early 80's.
"For me it's like a 360-degree thing music, education, art. It's
such a relief now to have the world take advantage of these amazing
new tools, because there were a lot of people in places like Ottawa,
Toronto and Montreal who were scared to death of digital art.
"A guitar will not replace a piano and oils do not replace
watercolours. The digital world is just another tool in the hands of
artists. That's how I think of it."
Sainte-Marie, who lives in Hawaii, is also heavily involved in
drafting school curriculum from an aboriginal perspective through the
Cradleboard Teaching Project.
Although she was raised in the United States, she did reconnect to
Canada around the same time her fame was on the rise. She was adopted
back into the Piapot Cree reserve in Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle valley
and has maintained a lifelong connection to that community.
Like many aboriginals, she rejects the national label of "American"
or "Canadian" but does feel a certain gratitude towards the country
of her birth. She said she found out, through a Canadian radio
personality, that the patch of difficulty she faced getting airplay
in the 1960s was because of a blacklist instituted by the Lyndon
Johnson administration.
She calls the Governor General's Award, which she formally receives
at a reception Friday night, a personal moment.
"For me, it's a chance to say thank-you to Canada for all the love
and the protection and the support that Canadians have given me
throughout my life. It was quite different for me in the U.S.."
Of her unusual career that kept her moving between radically
different worlds, Sainte-Marie wouldn't trade it for anything.
"I've played in most of the wonderful theatres in the world. I've
known people, highly educated with great good hearts, everywhere, and
at the same time, I've still been able to have a grassroots life
that's inspired me and taught me that side of life," she said.
"To be able to bring one to the other, is really rare in the world."
.
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