Canada’s next big chef makes sure you’re getting just desserts,
Power in the Blood, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s latest album after a six-year hiatus, opens with a reincarnation of It’s My Way, the title track off her 1964 debut album — a song that echoes that sentiment of change and spirit of emancipation that was in the air that year. Sadaf Ahsan talks to Sainte-Marie about songwriting, addiction and “being your own mutation.”
Q You are an artist who has constantly been evolving since you began in music and have remained impossible to categorize. What is different this decade?
A It’s not so much about what’s different; it’s what’s the same. From childhood, I’ve been a very diverse writer, thinker and musician, I’ve been curious about the world. On my first record, I was singing songs about a lot of different things and a lot of different styles. And I’ve always stuck to that.
The ’60s were a very special time and students ruled. The word was out that we didn’t have to join somebody’s damn war. Everybody had a guitar. So a lot of natural musicians were self-publishing, they were writing their own songs about what was real in their own lives, and I see the Internet as being very much like that.
Q Do you feel there’s been a greater acceptance in the music industry for aboriginal artists?
A There are certainly a lot more aboriginal people writing music now, whether we’re writing it as jazz, hip-hop, protest. Aboriginal music at the time, in the ’90s, was like black music had been in the ’30s and ’40s; it was already great, yet it had not been presented to a wide audience.
A whole lot of people in the music business started showing up on reserves and sticking a microphone in front of some group and saying, “We’re going to help you make a record!” The scam was to get a hold of the copyrights for aboriginal music, and I started a campaign amongst the different aboriginal labels and artists and said, “No, don’t do that. It’s just some guy in Toronto who’s going to have the entire literature of native Canada on his wall alongside his moccasin collection.” Just like any other kind of people or music, we’re trying to share something.
Q What statement are you making with Power in the Blood?
A The song was originally written by a group called Alabama 3, and it was really violent. They’re friends of mine, and I’m a fan of theirs, so I told them that this song would make a great peace song, and they laughed. I rewrote it.
It’s about the racketeering that is imposed on all of us and how most go along with it, because we don’t know what to do about it. But the one thing we can do is say no to war. War is different from economic oppression. War is murder.
Q You’ve experienced drug addiction in your past, something that has become more commonplace in music since then. You wrote about it when it was ahead of your time. Do you think the industry has changed or people have become more aware of addiction?
A The latter. I have a funny relationship to addiction in that most people who become addicted to something do it because they were having fun. For me, it was totally the opposite; I think that’s why I’ve been able to stay away from things that aren’t good for me.
I was deliberately addicted by a doctor who used to turn girls out in the ’60s, addict them, and put them out on the street. I thought I had bronchitis. After two weeks of treatment, daily injections and pills, I went to Atlanta with some friends and I was really feeling sick. So I went to the drugstore to fill a prescription, but it couldn’t be filled in another state, and the guy said, “How long have you been taking this?” I told him and he informed me that I was probably addicted.
That experience informed me as to how terribly incapacitating a drug could be, so I’m a teetotaller. And I think the fact that I don’t drink might be one of the reasons that I’m still having so much fun after so many years. I don’t have hangovers!
Q Have you found a catharsis in channelling your life experiences into your music?
A I think it’s cathartic to write songs in the first place, to bring a song from your imagination, heart and brain into the world so you can play it on an instrument and give it to other people and even other people can sing it to their audiences. It’s more than a dream come true.