Not Buffy The Vampire Slayer but Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Canadian-American singer songwriter, visual artist and activist. She was the reason I came to Sheffield for the very first time in the autumn of 1971. She appeared in concert at Sheffield City Hall, supported by Loudon Wainwright III.
I had just turned eighteen and I was obsessed with music - especially singer songwriters. In preceding months, I had listened to two of Buffy Sainte-Marie's albums over and over again. I knew that she had effectively been blacklisted by Presidents Johnson and Nixon for her involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Her style was simple and refreshing. Her voice trembled as she sang of injustice, of love and of memory. Though she came from very humble origins - born on a Native American reservation in Saskatchewan in 1941 - she refused to be unheard and clung fiercely to her originality and to the spirit of her ancestors.
Unlike Norma Waterson and Lata Mangeshkar, Buffy Sainte-Marie is still very much alive. She will be 81 next Sunday and I understand that nowadays she lives mostly in Hawaii. She wrote "Now That the Buffalo's Gone", "Universal Soldier", "Until It's Time for You To Go" (made famous by Elvis Presley) and she also co-wrote "Up Where We Belong" for the film "An Officer and a Gentleman". Of course there are many other songs in her canon of work.
Standing on the pavement outside The City Hall in October 1971, half an hour after the concert, I watched a black limousine approaching and there was Buffy sitting in the back. For a fragment of time our eyes connected and I waved. Of course I have always remembered that moment though she would have forgotten it almost instantly before moving on to the next British city on her tour schedule.
Here she is forty years later, at the age of seventy and still beautiful, recording for the BBC with Donovan Leitch on her right:-
Amazing song an amazing lady. Wow!
ReplyDeleteGlad you appreciated it Dave.
DeleteI’m a fan of singers songwriters as well.
ReplyDeleteLooking back, the late sixties/early seventies was something of a heyday for the singer-songwriter. The list of greats is almost endless.
DeleteThank you so much, Mr P. I loved the singer songwriters as well and was fortunate in seeing a lot of them live. I also truly love the Allman Brothers and never forgot seeing Greg Allman outside the Beacon Theater before a concert. I was star struck.
ReplyDeleteFunny how such moments live with us forever.
DeleteI love her voice. My favorite song of her's is Universal Soldier, so sad and so true.
ReplyDeleteI arrived at her through that song because Donovan had recorded it.
DeleteAbsolutely a dream of a song. Beautiful performance.
ReplyDeleteGlad you appreciated it MM.
DeleteI've heard of her but never knew much about her or her music. Now I do, thank you!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome Margaret.
DeleteI love Buffy St Marie. Her singing really grabs me. Glad to find another fan. Here is a fairly recent YouTube of her that I really enjoy.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5zb0WTSLsY
I had not heard that uplifting song before Jen. Thanks for directing me to it.
DeleteBuffy Sainte-Marie is more than a survivor: she flourished.
ReplyDeleteScott Fitzgerald said that real vitality once lost is very hard to regain, and he wrote about the loss of his own in The Crack-Up.
Two years after Buffy's appearance in Sheffield, I saw Sandy Denny in Glasgow.
She sang *Who Knows Where the Time Goes?* (YouTube) and had just five years left.
Read online:
*The Lonely Death of Sandy Denny.*
Paul Rees. Classic Rock.
An artist's creative life is far shorter than we realise, we tend to celebrate the exceptions.
The German writer Robert Walser spent more years in his mental asylum than he did writing. A very solitary life. He died while walking alone in the snow.
B.S. Johnson, a most original novelist, took his own life at 40.
John Gale, a brilliant journalist on Lord Astor's Observer, died by his own hand at 47.
Ann Quin, an experimental fiction writer like her friend Johnson, swam out to sea near Brighton, leaving behind a suicide note.
She had just been accepted on Malcolm Bradbury's writing degree programme, which produced Ishiguro, Rose Tremain and Ian McEwan.
Ah... Sandy Denny. Maybe I loved her with all my heart - I am not sure any more but she was so special. "Across the morning sky all the birds are leaving..."
DeleteI remember her but I think I would have been more thrilled at that concert you attended by the "supporting role" - Loudon Wainwright III. He was one of MY favorites.
ReplyDeleteWEll, yes, I did like him too and his funny banter between songs. "Last summer I went swimming...".
DeleteHey, Buffy is from my home province , Saskatchewan. Yes , great singer songwriter activist and all with class. I cringe a bit at native American reservation. We use aboriginal or first nations.
ReplyDelete"aboriginal" suggests the original people of Australia and "first nations" suggests wealthy countries that are top of the GDP table.
DeleteI know the song, but don't remember when I last heard it or who sang it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the trouble to listen River.
DeleteI'm a big fan of Buffy. In fact I have her authorized biography on my shelf. I haven't read it yet but I plan to!
ReplyDelete