34 Facts About Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie, was born on Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20,1941 and is an Indigenous Canadian-American singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist.

Buffy Sainte-Marie's singing and writing repertoire includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism.

Buffy Sainte-Marie has won recognition, awards and honours for her music as well as her work in education and social activism.

Buffy Sainte-Marie's songs have been recorded by many artists including Donovan, Joe Cocker, Jennifer Warnes, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, and Glen Campbell.

Buffy Sainte-Marie was adopted by an American couple, Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie, from Wakefield, Massachusetts.

Buffy Sainte-Marie married Sheldon Wolfchild from Minnesota in 1975; they have a son, Dakota "Cody" Starblanket Wolfchild.

Buffy Sainte-Marie married Jack Nitzsche, her co-writer of "Up Where We Belong" on March 19,1982; they were married for seven years.

Buffy Sainte-Marie has characterized the relationship as abusive and controlling; she left their home in Los Angeles out of fear for her and her son's safety.

Buffy Sainte-Marie blames Nitzsche for the stagnation of her career during this time.

Buffy Sainte-Marie appears in the 1985 video Mona With The Children by Douglas John Cameron.

Buffy Sainte-Marie taught herself to play piano and guitar in her childhood and teen years.

Buffy Sainte-Marie spent a considerable amount of time in the coffeehouses of downtown Toronto's old Yorkville district, and New York City's Greenwich Village as part of the early to mid-1960s folk scene, often alongside other emerging Canadian contemporaries, such as Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell.

In 1963, recovering from a throat infection, Buffy Sainte-Marie became addicted to codeine and recovering from the experience became the basis of her song "Cod'ine", later covered by Donovan, Janis Joplin, the Charlatans, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Man, the Litter, the Leaves, Jimmy Gilmer, Gram Parsons, Charles Brutus McClay, the Barracudas, the Golden Horde, Nicole Atkins and Courtney Love.

Buffy Sainte-Marie was named Billboard magazine's Best New Artist.

Buffy Sainte-Marie appeared on Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest with Pete Seeger in 1965 and several Canadian Television productions from the 1960s to the 1990s, and other TV shows such as American Bandstand, Soul Train, The Johnny Cash Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson; and sang the opening song "The Circle Game" in Stuart Hagmann's film The Strawberry Statement Then Came Bronson; episode 20 "Mating Dance for Tender Grass" sang and acted.

Buffy Sainte-Marie appeared in "The Heritage" episode of The Virginian, that first aired on October 30,1968.

Buffy Sainte-Marie played a Shoshone woman who had been sent to be educated at school.

In late 1975, Buffy Sainte-Marie received a phone call from Sesame Street producer Dulcy Singer to appear on the show for a one-shot guest appearance.

Buffy Sainte-Marie regularly appeared on Sesame Street over a five-year period from 1976 to 1981.

Buffy Sainte-Marie breastfed her first son, Dakota "Cody" Starblanket Wolfchild, during a 1977 episode, which is believed to be the first representation of breastfeeding ever aired on television.

Buffy Sainte-Marie began using Apple II and Macintosh computers as early as 1981 to record her music and later some of her visual art.

On January 29,1983, Jennings, Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

Buffy Sainte-Marie was cast for the TNT 1993 telefilm The Broken Chain.

Buffy Sainte-Marie voiced the Cheyenne character, Kate Bighead, in the 1991 made-for-TV movie Son of the Morning Star, telling the Indian side of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Sioux Chief Sitting Bull defeated Lt.

In 1992, after a sixteen-year recording hiatus, Buffy Sainte-Marie released the album Coincidence and Likely Stories.

Buffy Sainte-Marie has exhibited her art at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Emily Carr Gallery in Vancouver and the American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In 2000, Buffy Sainte-Marie gave the commencement address at Haskell Indian Nations University.

In 2002, a track written and performed by Buffy Sainte-Marie, titled "Lazarus", was sampled by Hip Hop producer Kanye West and performed by Cam'Ron and Jim Jones of The Diplomats.

In September 2008, Buffy Sainte-Marie made a comeback onto the music scene in Canada with the release of her studio album Running for the Drum.

In 2015, Buffy Sainte-Marie released the album Power in the Blood on True North Records.

Also in 2015, A Tribe Called Red released an electronic remix of Buffy Sainte-Marie's song, "Working for the Government".

In 2016, Buffy Sainte-Marie toured North America with Mark Olexson, Anthony King, Michel Bruyere, and Kibwe Thomas.

Buffy Sainte-Marie is the subject of Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On, a 2022 documentary film by Madison Thomas.

Buffy Sainte-Marie said in a 2008 interview at the National Museum of the American Indian that she had been blacklisted by American radio stations and that she, Native Americans, and other Indigenous people in the Red Power movements were pushed out of the industry during the 1970s.