ARTISTIC RESURGENCE
A sit-down with Buffy Sainte-Marie
Before she made her way into the music business, Buffy SainteMarie thought she was on a completely different path.
“I had a degree, and I thought I was going to become a philosophy teacher,” she laughs over the phone from her home in Hawaii. “The best I could get was the record business, so I’m a bit of a misfit in it.”
The Saskatchewan-born singersongwriter, famous in some quarters for protest-era tunes like Universal Soldier, isn’t exaggerating her status within the music industry. It was only in the ’80s that she found out her early activism and educational efforts had made her some powerful enemies.
While many countercultural icons navigated their way into the ’70s by slipping off their antiestablishment personas, SainteMarie had made enemies.
Powerful enemies like Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, American presidents with the capacity to derail careers.
Along with outspoken artists like Eartha Kitt and Taj Mahal, Sainte-Marie found herself on a secret blacklist, one that made plying her career somewhat more complicated.
“It’s not like we knew,” reflects Sainte-Marie, who was born on the Piapot Plains Cree First Nation Reserve in the Qu’Appelle Valley, and then adopted by a couple in Massachusetts.
“If we had known it’s possible we might have acted differently. I don’t know. The three of us were actually activists in the ’60s, and the thing is, there is a big difference between claiming to be an activist and actually going out and doing things. It’s funny, though, because I was such a goody two-shoes. It’s not as though I smoked pot on the lawn of the White House or carried a sign saying Down With Nixon. That’s a whole other topic to engage in, right?”
Right. Especially since SainteMarie has long outlived any underhanded efforts to derail her musical endeavours, with her last two albums, 2015’s Power in the Blood and 2017’s Medicine Songs bringing her both critical acclaim and notice from younger listeners.
She remains inquisitive and adventurous, performing with symphony orchestras, recording with Tanya Tagaq, picking up honorary doctorates, and hitting the road for summer festivals with her band.
We spoke with Sainte-Marie about her long career in the business, while she looked out the window of her Hawaiian home and counted the pigs, sheep and parrots sauntering by. Q: Not everybody gets a career resurgence — why do you think your number was called? A: The record company (True North) deserves credit there.
I really like the albums before that, like Running for the Drum and Coincidence and Likely Stories, it’s just that they actually put effort into making sure people knew about Medicine Songs and Power in the Blood. Q: Do you think it was also just your time for rediscovery? That the era demanded somebody step up from the protest singer side of things?
A: Well, you call me a protest singer, which many others do and it’s not inaccurate, but some people call me a children’s entertainer because I was on Sesame Street, while others think of me as a love song writer.
Q: Because you co-wrote (the Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes recorded) Up Where We Belong ?
A: That and Until It’s Time for You to Go, which made me enough money that I could actually be in the music industry. Q: You’ve penned a number of songs that have become hits for others, as well as yourself. Are you disciplined about writing ?
A: Oh no, I’ve never had a deadline. You read about someone like Neil Young, who has a new album every 15 minutes, but I’ve never been like that. I always have songs, sure, but I don’t think about making albums unless I’m about to go on tour. I never really was part of the music culture, because I didn’t drink and was scared to go into bars (laughs). I’ve never felt like I was a professional. There’s a core to all of this that I love, things like travelling and meeting people, but the business side is, well ... Q : That part hasn’t changed through the years.
A: Especially for Indigenous musicians. We don’t have the addresses, the emails, the contacts. We don’t know where the buildings are, or even the doors to the buildings. We don’t know who we’re talking to. Part of the reality of the business is that if you have blood, you’ll have sharks, and if you have money you’ll have thieves. It’s hard for a lot of artists, Indigenous or not, to understand this. I wish that the Junos would have me and a few other people come together to teach up-and-coming musicians about what’s up before they find out who has been undercutting them, or making sure they won’t get in so that someone else does get in.
The most knee-jerk of reactions to any festival tend to land squarely on its lineup — and yet the Edmonton Folk Music Festival has a definite edge over most: eight, count ’em, eight stages of music, Thursday through Sunday.
I’ve always found it odd how much attention is paid to who’s up on the main stage, particularly considering how much easier it is to access the side stages, since intimate connection between an artist and an audience is one of the greatest gifts to our supposedly intelligent species.
That said, this year’s main stage lineup is nothing to sneeze at. You may well love the more indie-leaning Decemberists or Lord Huron — I know a few people with big hats have been trying to get me to hook them up with tickets to the latter — but Saturday’s Ry Cooder and Regina Spektor, Friday’s Neko Case and above all Thursday’s Buffy Sainte-Marie are worth any reasonable effort to catch live in that beautiful, gigantic living-room setting.
Seriously, if you haven’t borne witness to Sainte-Marie’s powerful salvation before, she will have you crying with hope and inspiration, never mind up and dancing.
But getting back down to the loamy soil of folk fest, what follows is five suggestions you might not want to miss, and feel free to join the discussion and pass along ideas of your own to anyone around you.
I’ve never understood people’s obsession with green onion cakes — but I do agree with deep-cut folk fest fans who every year note the best things tend to happen in the margins, under the bright sun.
1.
Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Bill Kirchen
Before he had to leave the interview because of a family emergency, accomplished Flatlander Jimmie Dale Gilmore noted of Bill Kirchen, “We play together a lot, so we’ve built quite a repertoire. This time it’s with a really great rhythm section that plays with him all the time, so we’ll be doing a lot more of the upbeat — all the way from folk to rock to blues to hardcore country.” Sounds perfect, and I’ll tell you the story of how Steve Martin came up to him one time later — but in the meantime their Stage 5 concert is from 8:05 p.m. to 8:55 p.m. Friday, with three more sessions scheduled for; 6 p.m. Friday on Stage 6, 11 a.m. Sunday on Stage 3, and 5:50 p.m. Sunday on Stage 6.
DakhaBrakha
With more than 10 per cent of Edmonton’s population claiming Ukrainian descent, I’m always happy to see any Slavic representation at the folk fest. From Kyiv, DakhaBrakha’s multi-instrumental, multi-part harmonic music is hypnotic and a little trance-y, Nina Garenetska’s cello holding all the music with a hint of Morphine. They play a concert 6 p.m. Friday on Stage 3, and join others 11 a.m.-12:20 p.m. Saturday on Stage 5; and again at 3:05-4:20 p.m., same stage, same day.
Maria Dunn
Some weekend festivals open the main stage every day with a full set by a local act, and while tactical opinions vary, it’s great folk fest gives mic time to artists right under our noses. Because, let’s face it, not everybody makes
it out to the folk clubs. The accomplished, warm-hearted and brave Maria Dunn is exactly what folk festivals are all about — listen to her and you’ll walk away humming and smarter. She has a
concert at 7:05 p.m. Friday on Stage 7, and joins This Is the Kit, Jenn Grant and James Keelaghan 11 a.m.-12:20 p.m. Saturday on Stage 6. P.S., try to catch Scott Cook’s 12:05 p.m. Saturday show on Stage 7, too, another local hero.
Rev. Sekou
Listen to Rev. Sekou’s soaring, insistent song Resist to muscle up for a singalong and head down to Stage 3 Sunday between 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., just the antidote to hints of percolating fascism south of the border. Delta blues, Memphis soul and of course Baptist call-andresponse are all in the mix here. You should probably check this one out in your Sunday best — maybe bring a tie to wear over that fun run T-shirt? Sekou is also playing in workshops at 5:55 p.m. Saturday on Stage 5 and with Don Bryan among others at 12:30 p.m. on Stage 3 Sunday. Praise be!
5.
This Is the Kit
For England’s Kate Stables, the lure is her voice not quite harmonizing so much as echoing back and forth with bass player Rozi Plain’s, this over a subdued and mesmerizingly jagged math rock vibe. I don’t want to drop the weight of Joni Mitchell on her, but they do hit some of the same notes, and both seem to have no problem messing with what a song looks like in the same way, Stables leaning further into the Narnia folkloric. The band’s concert is 5:55 p.m. Saturday, with buffet shows at 6 p.m. Friday on Stage 2 and 11 a.m. on Saturday, Stage 6.