Buffy Sainte-Marie
Album: Many A Mile
Label: Vangard
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.acerecords.com

This is a valuable reissue. It brings into UK CD format for the first time Buffy's second album, issued in 1965. It presents a mix of her own compositions, some traditional material and songs by Bukka White and Patrick Sky. Buffy accompanies herself on guitar or mouthbow, with a little help from Daddy Bones and Patrick Sky, so it's an intimate record, and her delivery is predictably intense, often heavily vibrato-laden and at times piercing and shrieky - but that's a case of what you hear is what you get, and not a problem for anyone used to it.

Personally I've always found Buffy a mightily compelling singer, while acknowledging that her voice suits some material better than others. Now it's all too easy to forget how fearlessly pioneering an artist Buffy was, not only as a Native American writing her own songs - and perceived as a threat even in her time. But then, her songs included some fine love songs as well as the harsh activist pieces.

Many A Mile was Buffy's second album, following closely on the heels of her slightly tentative debut It's My Way (already available in Vanguard's reissue series). However, for some strange reason it has hitherto escaped reissue on CD until now, despite its containing some landmark songs (just five of which - Piney Wood Hills, Los Pescadores, Groundhog, Until It's Time For You To Go and Many A Mile - had since surfaced on the Best Of compilation, admittedly). At last we can hear on CD Buffy's time-stopping version of Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies (backed by the primitive twang of the mouthbow) and her absolutely stunning (and highly influential) take on prison worksong Lazarus.

And presentation-wise, this Ace reissue is everything you could desire, with original liner notes faithfully reproduced and updated with a brand new booklet essay. But there's one unexpected drawback with this important reissue: at times it sounds as though it's been remastered at not quite the right speed (a touch too slowly, so that Buffy sounds slightly speedy) - I emphasise this is an occasional impression, and doesn't affect all of the tracks, which is even more curious. I don't for a moment wish to sound churlish, for Ace normally do such a good job with their reissues - perhaps the master tape had deteriorated over the years? Who knows?…

David Kidman