The mere rumour that buffy Sainte-Marie was coming to Peterborough sent me off to the bus station to buy an $18 one-way ticket to that town.[rssbreak]
Word of mouth being my customary source of information, it never occurred to me to ask a computer for confirmation. A thrilling surprise royalty cheque for a song I wrote courtesy of honest Seattle musicians provided the means.
In Peterborough I found the info I needed at a bookstore and trotted down the street to buy a ticket for an onstage interview that night. I gladly exchanged a $20 bill for a seat.
Sainte-Marie’s interview and outdoor performance the next night were part of the week-long Ode’min Giizis, Strawberry Moon Festival.
Sainte-Marie, in a hot-pink T and black jeans, entered Market Hall to a standing ovation and took her place on a couch with the producer of Rez Bluez, Elaine Bomberry. She began the slightly guarded telling of her remarkable career and the massive effort to silence her.
Born in Saskatchewan, Sainte-Marie was adopted away and grew up in a town in Massachusetts where there was only one other native person. Another adoption later – back into the native circle – allowed her to reconnect with her roots.
In the early 60s, she began to sing and play the New York coffee houses where Bob Dylan was performing.
“I was so green!” she tells us.
When a folk group asked to record Universal Soldier, she said okay. “Publishing? What’s that?” she innocently asked. An obliging businessman wrote a contract on a napkin, gave her $1, saying that was standard, and removed her royalty rights to Universal Soldier until she could afford to buy them back for $25G a decade later.
It was years before she learned that letters on White House stationery advising the suppression of her music had been sent to radio stations across North America.
She wrote movie scores and the Oscar-winning song Up Where We Belong, and Elvis was among those who recorded her Until It’s Time For You To Go. And always she stayed close to the ground, playing on reservations, at grassroots festivals and AIM benefits.
“If someone gives you shit, you flush it. You don’t make a trophy out of it,” said Sainte-Marie, who shows no trace of bitterness.
A small crowd, including a woman with vinyl albums belonging to her mother, wait for her after her talk. I really don’t want to bother her, but I’ve had a souvenir copy of my little song disc ready for her for two years.
And, of course, I want something else. I wait until all the autographs, photographs and the inevitable long-winded man with a plan are finished. Of course, I’m nervous. I make her laugh, hand her the record and take her understandably cautious hand and raise it to my forehead, clumsily receiving the knuckles of Buffy Sainte-Marie in my clogged-up third eye while muttering an incoherent- sounding explanation of my need for this blessing.
The sun was setting the next day when Sainte-Marie took the stage in Del Crary Park. She twanged and sang Cripple Creek on a mouth bow it was the size and shape to shoot arrows, showing how the earliest musicians found a way to turn a weapon into an instrument. Given the current level of weaponry, she remarked, we have a great future in music.
The strength and emotion of this singer, both scathing and tender, who was influenced early by Edith Piaf, held us rapt. She blessed us all, and all the mosquitoes of Peterborough sucked my blessed blood as I waited on the street for the 4 am bus back home.3
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