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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 3, 2015)
Page 4 News Street Roots • July 3-9, 2015 — Tradition reimagined— Whether ifs a social movement or a song, Buffy Sainte-Marie is still doing it her way BY SUE ZALOKAR by just about everybody — Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Donovan, Courtney Love, Barbra Streisand, the Indigo Girls and ith the release of her debut album, more. She won an Oscar for co-writing the “It’s My Way!,” in 1964, Buffy 1982 hit “Up Where We Belong,” the theme Sainte-Marie was named Billboard for the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Magazine’s best new artist. It was the same Most recently, Sainte-Marie is taking year the United States was “invaded” by the action to address the ongoing housing Beatles and was in the midst of the Vietnam situation in the reserves of Manitoba, a War. project she calls “Green Indians.” Sainte- Soon after, with political songs like Marie’s idea ties together her understanding “Universal Soldier,” “Now That the Buffalo’s of the land and people, her interest in Gone” and “My Country ’Tis of Thy People traditional ways, NASA, Habitat for You’re Dying,” Sainte-Marie was blacklisted Humanity and some of the poorest people in by the Johnson and Nixon administrations in Manitoba, aboriginal people living on a campaign to suppress the work of certain reserves. musicians. It didn’t faze her one bit. In fact, She wants to reimagine traditional she didn’t even notice. structures for modern-day indigenous people Born on the Piapot Cree First Nation and envisions a kind of mixture of the Idle reserve in the Qu’Appelle Valley, No More movement and Habitat for Saskatchewan, Sainte-Marie was raised by Humanity — a grass-roots movement to build adoptive parents in Massachusetts. As an modern, sustainable homes with a nod to adult, she was adopted again, this time by traditional native-style homes. The project is the youngest son of Chief Piapot, a Piapot just gathering steam but could be a simple Cree. She has been, an iconic activist for the solution to a long-standing problem: rights of America’s indigenous people for housing. more than 50 years. In the 1970s, Sainte- A self-proclaimed country girl, and one Marie bared her breast, promoting breast with a seemingly endless amount of feeding and the idea that “Indians still exist” creativity and passion for love and life, to generations of Americans, native and non Sainte-Marie long has sent a message of native alike. peace. Her first album in six years was Sainte-Marie has received numerous released in May, and she talked to me from awards and degrees, both academic and her Hawaii home about “Power in the honorary, and her music has been covered Blood.” STA FF W R ITE R W Sue Zalokar: “It’s My Way” was the title song for your first album in 1964. It opens the new album and has inspired generations of people to carve out their own paths in this world. What is the importance of this song to you? Buffy Sainte-Marie: It seems like you’ve got it. Some people who have never heard it before, they will get it mixed up with Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” He puts the emphasis on “my,” but no. For me, it’s about it’s my path. I was really hoping to inspire other people to the uniqueness that you find. So, thank you. S.Z.: Does it ever “get old”playing songs you wrote 50 years ago? B.S.M.: Not really, not the good ones. The other ones I don’t play because I’m not that crazy about them or they just don’t stand the test of time ... or they were cute for the moment. You know, like a joke that you can only tell so many times? Some songs, you kind of forget about ’em. But o th ers... I’m of the opinion that good songs stay good. We live in a world where corporations need us to throw things away. Whatever we already bought, we are supposed to throw that away and buy something new. But when it comes to a r t ... I mean the Mona Lisa doesn’t stop being good. And Tchaikovsky is as good as he ever was. And you listen to Bob Dylan’s albums from the ’60s, and they are still great. They are still ahead of their time. Art just doesn’t follow the rules of merchandising. S.Z.: You were vibrant then, and you are vibrant now. You seemingly have an endless well of creativity to tap into. Where does your creative inspiration come from? B.S.M.: Kid, I don’t know. I’m just the same as I was when I was a little kid. Kids are all creative. If you want a clue to me, just look at any group of little kids who go to the beach. They are all creative. Everyone is. It’s just that some of us get to hold onto it. I’m really the same kid I was back then. There are a lot of natural things that the corporations are not pushing, and so sometimes people might forget about those things. But they don’t go away. I’m always telling adults in my audience, if you went to the beach when you were 5, you would have made sand castles and you would have used your imagination and made drama, created characters in your head, you would have made up songs and stories, and you can still do that, if you want to. But we are told that we should get Serious and go work on somebody’s plantation and start shoveling coins into their bank account. See SAINTE-MARIE, page 5
