SHE’S BACK
Buffy to play North Country Fair
While North Country Fair has always been a sort of open-air leg wrestle between free-range meandering and round-the-clock mystic musical performance, the festival has never had an act of the symbolic grandeur of this year’s Friday night headliner.
“I always said if we ever got the money to do it, I’d book Buffy Sainte-Marie,” says longtime music programmer Carol Weatherall. Over the years, she has brought in SNFU, surprise hit phenomenon Fred Penner, Elliott Brood, Old Reliable and pretty well any western Canadian act willing and able to get a little mud in their undergarments.
In the last year, meanwhile, Sainte-Marie played a stunning show at Interstellar Rodeo in Edmonton, won two Junos and the $50,000 Polaris Prize.
“I didn’t think I was going to win anything,” the singer says on the phone from her garden home in Hawaii. “I was surprised to even be on the list! But what’s it like up there, is it nice?” Oh, man … For the uninitiated, the 38-yearold North Country Fair sits about 330 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, up either Highway 33 or 44, depending on your dice roll. Curious, always-thirsty musicians tend to caterpillar freely through the wide-ranging campgrounds, and outfits are loosely worn that would make Dr. Seuss pull his head off and give it a shake.
The freedom to sink or literally swim through the elements amid the forest stages, twisting river and dandelion fields makes city festivals feel like drone-patrolled stockyards on branding day by comparison — though there is proper security, first aid and, a relatively recent development: pay showers. No one can quite agree, but somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 people attend the fair, still known to its veterans as Hippy Days.
Besides Sainte-Marie pencilled in for 8:30 p.m. Friday, this year’s acts include Russell de Carle Trio, Lily Fawn and Songs from the Black Lodge, a different band called Twin Peaks, Ghostkeeper, the Legendary Downchild Blues Band and that roving night panther Scott Cook, plus Jenny Allen, Joe Nolan, the lovable Terry Morrison & John Gorham, the McGowan Family Experience, the Uncas, that wild bellowing beast Boogie Patrol and many more. But let’s focus: with Sainte-Marie’s first visit to the festival, organizers reached out to elders in the Swan River, Driftpile and Sucker Creek First Nations. Sainte-Marie, a longtime social activist and pacifist, is a member of the Piapot Plains Cree First Nation in Saskatchewan.
“What started with three elders ended up being 100 coming in on buses,” Weatherall laughs, noting there will be a special blessing of the site on the mainstage the night Sainte-Marie plays, tying in with National Aboriginal Day celebrations. “Though they won’t all fit on one stage,” the organizer smiles.
After the show, the 75-year-old is scheduled to sit and sign autographs, and meet anyone, including those wishing to give her a gift.
“Often that will happen at my concerts,” she says. “It’s always very welcome and really nice. I think festivalgoers, wherever they are, are a little more interested in culture than people who just go to concerts. A festival usually implies there’s going to be music from all over the place, therefore you’d be smart to have a broad perspective and keep your ears open for new things.
“When you have something of aboriginal culture that’s so true to the place and the people who live there, I think it’s appropriate. I’m always grateful on behalf of the audience if someone is willing to do that, that kind of aboriginal protocol.”
She has a busy summer ahead, with festival stops and concerts in Ottawa, Toronto, New York, Chicago, the Queen Charlottes and many other spots. She’s back in Alberta on July 17 for the Wild Mountain Music Festival in Hinton.
Sainte-Marie is playing solo on Friday at North Country Fair, which is somewhat rare.
“I’ve always done occasional solo concerts, though I miss being with the band. It means certain songs, I can’t do. It means I have to work more,” she laughs, but adds, “Music is really in danger right now because of the gouging the airlines are doing. It’s making it impossible for working musicians with a band like myself — I just get charged thousands and thousands every time I get on an airplane.
“You think of college and high school sports teams, college and marching bands. We won’t be able to do it any more. In Australia, at least they’ve gotten as far as making the airline all agree as to how much they gouge us.”
Looking back, Sainte-Marie recalls playing the opening ceremonies of Slave Lake’s Arctic Winter Games in 1994.
“It was a freezing cold night. Everybody’s wearing mittens, so the applause sounded like a stampede of teddy bears!
“It was so cold it was not only hard to play guitar, but keyboard. And God bless Susan Aglukark was there and she lent me her parka, otherwise I just would have been frozen to the bone. It was one of those starry nights where there’s just northern lights everywhere, just beautiful, beautiful.”
With this memory, the singer reminds North Country fans of two things for which to prepare: While you hopefully won’t need Aglukark’s parka, make sure to be ready for heat, cold, wet or dry. No, really.
But more important, prepare to have your mind blown — with all the magic surrounding Sainte Marie, 2016 is already looking like one for the ages.