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