Happy Birthday, Buffy!

Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie turns 80 today.

Happy Birthday, Buffy!

As regulars readers will know, I’ve long admired Buffy Sainte-Marie and enjoyed her music. Indeed, I find her to be a very inspiring figure. (I even chose her song “It's My Way” as my theme song when I turned 50 in 2015!)

Left: With Buffy after her August 26, 2016 performance at The Dakota in Minneapolis.

I especially appreciate and am inspired by Buffy’s passion and purposefulness – and by the way she blends her art and social activism. I’ve seen her four times in concert, and had the privilege of meeting and talking with her on three of these occasions. She’s creative, articulate, warm, and funny – a very human human being.


Buffy's most recent album is the award-winning Medicine Songs (2017), about which Buffy says the following.

[Medicine Songs] is a collection of front line songs about unity and resistance – some brand new and some classics – and I want to put them to work. These are songs I've been writing for over fifty years, and what troubles people today are still the same damn issues from 30-40-50 years ago: war, oppression, inequity, violence, rankism of all kinds, the pecking order, bullying, racketeering and systemic greed. Some of these songs come from the other side of that: positivity, common sense, romance, equity and enthusiasm for life.

I really want this collection of songs to be like medicine, to be of some help or encouragement, to maybe do some good. Songs can motivate you and advance your own ideas, encourage and support collaborations and be part of making change globally and at home. They do that for me and I hope this album can be positive and provide thoughts and remedies that rock your world and inspire new ideas of your own.

Above: Buffy and guitarist Anthony King performing at the Big Top Chautauqua, Bayfield, WI on Saturday, August 27, 2016. (Photo: Michael J. Bayly)

In celebrating Buffy today at The Wild Reed I share a 22-minute bio of Buffy, part of the Catch the Dream series hosted by actor Adam Beach.

Directed by Jesse Green, this “intimate portrait,” made just last year, “offers a deeper understanding of Buffy’s relationship to music and the challenges she faced as a blacklisted musician on account of her political activism. Buffy reveals her creative process and encourages others to find and use theirs.” (NOTE: There are short breaks between the three parts of this video.)

For The Wild Reed’s special series of posts leading-up to the November 10, 2017 release of Medicine Songs, see:
• For Acclaimed Songwriter, Activist and Humanitarian Buffy Sainte-Marie, the World is Always Ripening
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “I’m Creative Anywhere”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie Headlines SummerStage Festival in NYC’s Central Park
• Buffy Sainte-Marie, “One of the Best Performers Out Touring Today”
• The Music of Buffy Sainte-Marie: “Uprooting the Sources of Disenfranchisement”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “Things Do Change and Things Do Get Better”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Medicine Songs

For The Wild Reed’s special series of posts leading-up to the May 12, 2015 release of Buffy’s award-winning album, Power in the Blood, see:
• Buffy Sainte-Marie and That “Human-Being Magic”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Lesson from the Cutting Edge: “Go Where You Must to Grow”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “Sometimes You Have to Be Content to Plant Good Seeds and Be Patient”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Power in the Blood


For more of Buffy Sainte-Marie at The Wild Reed, see:
• A Music Legend Visits the North Country: Buffy Sainte-Marie in Minnesota and Wisconsin – August 2016
• Carrying It On . . . Into the New Year
• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “America the Beautiful”
• Two Exceptional Singers Take a Chance on the “Spirit of the Wind”
• Photo of the Day – January 21, 2017
• Buffy Sainte-Marie Wins 2015 Polaris Music Prize
• Congratulations, Buffy
• Happy Birthday, Buffy! (2016)
• Happy Birthday, Buffy! (2018)
• Happy Birthday, Buffy! (2019)
• Happy Birthday, Buffy! (2020)
• Actually, There’s No Question About It
• For Buffy Sainte-Marie, a Well-Deserved Honor
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: Singing It and Praying It; Living It and Saying It
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: Still Singing with Spirit, Joy, and Passion
• Something Special for Indigenous Peoples Day
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “The Big Ones Get Away”

Related Off-site Links:
Happy Birthday to a Living Legend – Ruth Hopkins (Teen Vogue, February 20, 2021).
Iconic Canadian Singer-Songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie Reminisces On An Eventful Eight Decades – Brad Wheeler (The Globe and Mail, February 19, 2021).
For Decades, Buffy Sainte-Marie Has Had to Navigate Systemic Barriers to Cultivate Her Art – Andrea Warner (The Globe and Mail, February 18, 2021).
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Truth, Justice, and Buffy’s Way – Benito Vila (PleaseKillMe.com, February 17, 2021)
Buffy Sainte-Marie Discusses What We Weren’t Ready For In 1988 – Glenn Sumi and Daryl Jung (Now, February 15, 2021).
Buffy the Truth Sayer: An Interview with Buffy Sainte-Marie – Mandy Nolan (The Echo, February 13, 2020).
Buffy Sainte-Marie Named As the Recipient of the Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award – Ian Courtney (Encore, February 14, 2020).
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Authorized Biography Serves As a “Map Of Hope” – Scott Simon and Ian Stewart (NPR News, September 29, 2018).
Buffy Sainte-Marie Tells Her Life Story, Her Way – Sue Carter (The Star, September 29, 2018)
Buffy Sainte-Marie: “I Constantly Ask Myself, Where Are the Great Protest Songs of Today?” – Regina Leader-Post, (February 6, 2018).
Music as Medicine: Buffy Sainte-Marie Talks Politics, Sex Scandals and Her Brand New Album – Rosanna Deerchild (CBC Radio’s Unreserved, November 19, 2017)
Buffy Sainte-Marie Takes a Stand with Medicine Songs – ET Canada (November 30, 2017).
Buffy Sainte-Marie Makes Music for a New Generation of Activists – Tom Power (CBC Radio, November 17, 2017).
The Unbreakable Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Candid Conversation with the Resilient Songwriter and Activist – Whitney Phaneuf (Acoustic Guitar, January 18, 2017).
What Does Buffy Sainte-Marie Believe? – CBC Radio (December 30, 2016).

Opening image: Photographer unknown.