Sainte-Marie is well aware that some people see her as frozen in time in the s, rubbing shoulders and even occasionally sharing stages and songs with casual friends and fellow famous musicians, like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. But that misses the bigger picture. She has always been a radical musician. In , she won the prestigious Polaris Prize for Power in the Blood —an electrifying album complete with club bangers and contemporary electronic powwow anthems.
She writes about everything from love and heartbreak and Indigenous joy to peace and political corruption and environmental exploitation. Many of her songs are nuanced illustrations of how these themes not only intersect but also inform one another in ways both big and small. It is believed that Buffy Sainte-Marie was born in on the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan, and taken from her biological parents when she was two or three. This practice was later dubbed the Sixties Scoop , referring to the decade in which it was most prevalent though it had gone on well before the s, and would go on for decades to come.
She was always close to Winifred, and credits her for nurturing and encouraging a lifelong love of learning. She also took comfort in solitude and, even as a little kid, always felt a strong connection to her inner creativity.
Sainte-Marie surrounded herself with nature and animals and her own sense of wonder. As Sainte-Marie developed as a songwriter and performed in Canada and the U. Sainte-Marie met Piapot at a powwow in Ontario, and a short while later visited the Piapot reserve for the first time. In the early s, she was officially adopted back into the Piapot family and given the Cree name Medicine Bird Singing. Sainte-Marie performing at the Polaris Prize Gala.
She earned a PhD in Fine Art from the University of Massachusetts, and holds degrees in oriental philosophy and in education. She has also pursued acting and the visual arts. Her visual art combines colours and light, using scanned-in photos, fabrics, feathers, or beads. The songs were rockabilly blues and powwow rock, about environmental greed and hot sexy love. The world saw me as a girl with a guitar, but I never was that kind of Woody Guthrie person. Touring with that band was a liberation.
Sainte-Marie performing at the Juno Awards. It had some smash rockers unknown to most people. I was encouraged that the world might like this side of my music, so I made Power in the Blood in It won the Polaris Music Prize. The public thought I was doing something new.
But the thing is, they were finally able to hear what I was all about. Build your personal news feed. Switch gears. Skip to main content. Brad Wheeler. I forgot my password. Why sign up?
Create Account. Suggest an Edit. Enter your suggested edit s to this article in the form field below. Accessed 11 November In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published September 02, ; Last Edited June 28, The Canadian Encyclopedia , s. Thank you for your submission Our team will be reviewing your submission and get back to you with any further questions. Thanks for contributing to The Canadian Encyclopedia. Beverly Sainte-Marie, CC , singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, social activist, philanthropist, visual artist born 20 February on Piapot Reserve, SK.
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