Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC (formerly Beverly Sainte-Marie; born 1941) is a Native Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist,educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire also includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism.[....]
By 1962, in her early twenties, she was touring alone, developing her craft and performing in various concert halls, folk music festivals and Native Americans reservations across the United States, 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, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell. (Read more at Wikipedia.)
Links to Peel[]
Peel may well have been aware of Buffy Sainte-Marie during his years in the United States, as her songs were recorded by other artists, notably Donovan, whose cover of her "Universal Soldier" was a chart success. He played the title track from her album Little Wheel Spin and Spin on the Perfumed Garden of 18 July 1967 and said he was impressed by photos of her; "she looks like an Aztec goddess or something". But in 1968 he surprised his Top Gear listeners by enthusing over her "I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again" LP, and wrote in International Times:
Buffy Sainte Marie - I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again
- Buffy Sainte-Marie was given a rough time by the jackboot generation when she was over here recently which is one of the great sadnesses as she may never return. I know many people think country and western stuff is a drag but her "I'm going to be a country girl again" is so beautiful. Don't close yourself to anything because that is what we're all up against anyway. It's on Vanguard and "Top Gear" and can be found at One Stop (of course) and Musicland. Possibly others also. [1]
Peel said he would play a different track from "I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again" each week on Top Gear, until he had played the whole album, but although at least six tracks appear in available playlists, it will be impossible to confirm whether he did this until currently missing 1968 playlists are found. The LP was eventually released in the UK by Fontana Records, as was the singer's follow-up album, the experimental "Illuminations", which used synthesizers and is claimed to be the first quadrophonic vocal album ever made. Peel liked Buffy Sainte-Marie's setting of a Leonard Cohen text, "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot", and played it a few times on his shows. He had some sympathy for the singer because of her Native American background and her political activism. He played her 1971 single "Soldier Blue" from the film of the same name, a "revisionist Western" which portrayed the massacre of an Indian tribe and had contemporary resonances because of the widely reported My Lai massacre, carried out by US troops during the Vietnam war. The single and film were both hits in the UK, but not in the US.
Despite Peel's fears, Buffy Sainte-Marie did revisit Britain on several occasions, and after the success of "Soldier Blue" made a number of BBC TV appearances on shows ranging from Lulu's BBC1 show to early editions of the Old Grey Whistle Test. But she never did a session for Peel's show and it is not known if she was ever asked to do one. Later, she became a favourite of Morrissey,and appeared on his UK tour in 2015 [2].
After the early 1970s, Peel seems not to have played any more tracks by her, but seven LPs by her were found in his record collection.[3]
Festive Fifty Entries[]
- None
Sessions[]
- None
Other Shows Played[]
- 18 July 1967: Little Wheel Spin And Spin (album - Little Wheel Spin And Spin) Fontana STFL 6071
- 30 June 1968: I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again (album - I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again) Vanguard VSD-79280
- 14 July 1968: It's Gonna Feel Much Better When You've Gone (album - I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again) Vanguard VSD-79280
- 21 July 1968: They Gotta Quit Kickin' (album - I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again) Vanguard VSD-79280
- 28 July 1968: Soulful Shade Of Blue
- 11 August 1968: Sometimes When I Get To Thinkin' (album - I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again) Vanguard VSD-79280
- 18 August 1968: ?
- 15 September 1968: ?
- 14 May 1969: Take My Hand For A While