After Polaris win, Buffy Sainte-Marie reflects on songwriting, protest and music
Says timing and technology big factors in getting message out
After 196 Canada-wide jurors decided on a long list of 40 albums, then a short list of 10 albums, Saskatchewan-born Buffy Sainte-Marie's Power in the Blood was chosen as this year's Polaris Music Prize winner, earning her $50,000 along with the award.
The album is the 74-year-old's twentieth in her long career. She was born on the Piapot First Nation, northeast of Regina.
She joined Sheila Coles, host of CBC Saskatchewan's The Morning Edition, to talk about the many facets of her long career.
What the award means
"I'm so thrilled. I didn't think it would come to me, but it's a wonderful prize for several reasons. The first is, I've always been a multi-genre person, and in the 1960s that was a good thing, and now, that's a good thing. But in between, it was a bad thing," she said. "It was very hard to get records played if you were a multi-genre artist [during those years]."
"Second, the fact they do give an artist some money. It's impossible to tour and take your album on the road. I really do appreciate that Polaris recognizes artists and gives them money to support their careers."
On the process of songwriting
A lot of her songs are already in her head, she said. They already have their elements built in.
Referring to the song Generation, she said, "I remember walking around Regina in the 1970s with my dad when they were trying to put that guy on the moon. And my dad said, 'Daughter, they ought to leave that moon alone.' That line was in my head, and I was trying to get to the Rosebud Sioux Reservation for the sun dance [at that time]."
"This was the 1970s and I was blacklisted in the U.S. It didn't matter what type of songs I wrote — love songs, rock songs, serious songs like Generation — I couldn't get them played no matter what.
"So I rewrote the song, because I'm on the road all the time. I do these songs on the stage all the time, but audiences couldn't find them. Instead of sending them back to vinyl, I thought, 'Why not re-record them to re-reflect contemporary issues?'"
Her message on First Nations rights
"With Generation, we were saying things that were too early for their time [in the 1970s]. Most people were not thinking that way. Most people were thinking banks were like, the priest, you know? The church. They wouldn't do anything wrong. Some of us knew better."
"[Today] it's the same message with very few updates necessary. What's different is that people are now able to hear about the message. Now, more people are able to hear about the issues that I'm talking about," Sainte-Marie said, citing the Idle No More movement as an example.
"The good news about the bad news is that now more people can see it."
"In a way, songs that were too early for their time, that kind of got lost in that blacklist-sandwich, I updated. Generation and several other songs are talking about Idle No More. I'm so proud of people in Saskatchewan who've been involved with Idle No More."