Today we will listen to Buffy Sainte-Marie . . .

I was in eighth grade when I first heard Buffy Sainte-Marie, her music introduced by my English teacher. I can't remember the teacher's name. What I remember of her was that she had olive-colored skin and a mass of thick salt-and-pepper hair that she wore collar-bone length. She had dark-framed glasses on a chain and almost always wore slim-lined, dark skirts and sweater sets. Her probing questions about our reading sparked some real conversations. She had a quiet knack for bringing us out of our shells. But she never shared herself with us. Until this one Monday, the new week following a weekend death of one of our classmates.

Freddie was his name. He had died immediately when the car he was riding in slammed into a tree at high speed. He'd been a quiet one, the dark-haired, sulking bad boy....all the girls could tell that. Nothing special had been done by the school to guide the students through their sadness and shock, unlike now when cadres of counselors are brought in to support students when friends are taken suddenly.

We all were seated when our teacher walked into the classroom carrying a portable record player, a large canvas bag slung over one shoulder. Just a turntable with built-in speaker and a cord that she plugged in by her table at the front of the class and a worn LP that she gently pulled from the bag and situated on the turntable. As she bent over to eye her positioning of the tonearm onto the record, she raised her eyes to us and said, simply, Today we will listen to Buffy Sainte-Marie. That was all that was said in class that day. Our teacher sat in her chair at the table in front and seemed to disappear with the heaviness and lightness weighing and playing in the songs.....and in our individual thoughts.



From Wikipedia:

Buffy Sainte-Marie was born August 2, 1941 on the Piapot Cree Indian reserve in the Qu'Appelle valley, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was orphaned and later adopted and grew up in Maine and with parents Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie who were related to her biological parents. From the University of Massachusetts she holds degrees in teaching and Oriental Philosophy graduating in the top ten of her class and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Fine Arts. In 1964 on a return trip to the Piapot Cree reserve in Canada for a Powwow she was welcomed and (in a Cree nation context) adopted by the youngest son of Chief Piapot, Imu Piapot and his wife who added to Sainte-Marie's cultural value of, and place in, First Nations culture.

From the online biography Creative Native, that includes photos and a deeper background on this artist, and the link to her Official On-Line Art Gallery.

Buffy Sainte-Marie was a graduating college senior in 1962 and hit the ground running in the early the Sixties, after the beatniks and before the hippies. All alone she toured North America's colleges, reservations and concert halls, meeting both huge acclaim and huge misperception from audiences and record companies who expected Pocahontas in fringes, and instead were both entertained and educated with their initial dose of Native American reality in the first person.

By age 24, Buffy Sainte-Marie had appeared all over Europe, Canada, Australia and Asia, receiving honors, medals and awards which continue to this day. Her song "Until It's Time for You to Go" was recorded by Elvis and Barbra and Cher, and her "Universal Soldier" became the anthem of the peace movement. For her very first album she was voted Billboard's Best New Artist.

She disappeared suddenly from the mainstream American airwaves during the Lyndon Johnson years. As part of a blacklist which affected Eartha Kitt, Taj Mahal and a host of other outspoken performers, her name was included on White House stationery as among those whose music "deserved to be suppressed". In Indian country and abroad, however, her fame only grew. She continued to appear at countless grassroots concerts, AIM events and other activist benefits. She made 17 albums of her music, three of her own television specials, spent five years on Sesame Street, scored movies, helped to found Canada's 'Music of Aboriginal Canada' JUNO category, raised a son, earned a Ph.D. in Fine Arts, taught Digital Music as adjunct professor at several colleges, and won an Academy Award Oscar for the song "Up Where We Belong".

Buffy Sainte-Marie virtually invented the role of Native American international activist pop star. Her concern for protecting indigenous intellectual property, and her distaste for the exploitation of Native American artists and performers has kept her in the forefront of activism in the arts for forty years. Presently she operates the Nihewan Foundation for Native American Education whose Cradleboard Teaching Project serves children and teachers in eighteen states.

Video by gewajega@yahoo.com

"God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot"

Song: Buffy Sainte-Marie

Lyrics by Leonard Cohen

God is alive; Magic is afoot
God is alive; Magic is afoot
God is afoot; Magic is alive
Alive is afoot.....
Magic never died.
God never sickened;
many poor men lied
many sick men lied
Magic never weakened
Magic never hid
Magic always ruled
God is afoot
God never died.
God was ruler
though his funeral lengthened
Though his mourners thickened
Magic never fled
Though his shrouds were hoisted
the naked God did live
Though his words were twisted
the naked Magic thrived
Though his death was published
round and round the world
the heart did not believe
Many hurt men wondered
many struck men bled
Magic never faltered
Magic always led.
Many stones were rolled
but God would not lie down
Many wild men lied
many fat men listened
Though they offered stones
Magic still was fed
Though they locked their coffers
God was always served.
2..
Magic is afoot. God rules.
Alive is afoot. Alive is in command.
Many weak men hungered
Many strong men thrived
Though they boasted solitude
God was at their side
Nor the dreamer in his cell
nor the captain on the hill
Magic is alive
Though his death was pardoned
round and round the world
the heart did not believe.
Though laws were carved in marble
they could not shelter men
Though altars built in parliaments
they could not order men
Police arrested Magic
and Magic went with them,
for Magic loves the hungry.
But Magic would not tarry
it moves from arm to arm
it would not stay with them
Magic is afoot
it cannot come to harm
it rests in an empty palm
it spawns in an empty mind
but Magic is no instrument
Magic is the end.
Many men drove Magic
but Magic stayed behind
Many strong men lied
they only passed through Magic
and out the other side
Many weak men lied
they came to God in secret
and though they left him nourished
they would not say who healed
Though mountains danced before them
they said that God was dead
Though his shrouds were hoisted
the naked God did live
3...
This I mean to whisper to my mind
This I mean to laugh with in my mind
This I mean my mind to serve 'til
service is but Magic
moving through the world
and mind itself is Magic
coursing through the flesh
and flesh itself is Magic
dancing on a clock
and time itself the magic length of God.

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