Buffy Sainte-Marie
Fatea interviewed Buffy Sainte-Marie back in 1992 when she released her album, "Coincidence & Other Stories" it was her first album for 16 years. Not one to be rushed, Buffy has recently released "Running For The Drum" and makes her Cambridge debut this year.
Buffy Sainte-Marie was born on a Cree Indian reservation in Canada. Orphaned at a young age, she was taken off the reservation with distant relatives in the US. Her life story is one of the most fascinating in music, including winning an Oscar as the writer of "Up Where We Belong".
An accomplished song writer as well as performer, she wrote "Universal Soldier" amongst many other songs, she was a daughter of the protest movement. Championing human rights and Indian rights in many of her songs, including the theme to the film 'Soldier Blue' about the butchery of Native Americans by the state.
Her political activity brought her to the eye of the White House, Lydon B Johnson actually wrote letters of praise to radio stations tat refused to play her music or that of other first nation artists.
For five and a half years she was a member of the Sesame Street cast, taking the opportunity to explain her culture to wider America.
Buffy Sainte-Maire was an early adopter of technology, her "Coincidence & Other Stories" album was one of the first that involved sending tracks around the early internet to be recorded and produced elsewhere. The album also enhanced her reputation as both songwriter and activist with songs like "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" and "The Big Ones Get Away" about how the rich and powerful ones always seem to get away with it.
Sainte-Marie also adopted the digital medium for her art and has been exhibited across the US and Canada. She has also adopted the digital medium as a springboard for getting first nation school children involved in joint projects with children of other backgrounds.
Opportunities to see Buffy Sainte-Marie in the UK are as rare as rocking horse do-dah. The guy down the front with the Panama will be me