The legendary Buffy Sainte-Marie has joined the league of (Canadian) American Masters, appearing on the PBS podcast American Masters: Creative Spark to discuss her towering legacy, her journey through the folk music industry of the '60s as an Indigenous woman and the ongoing fight for the planet.
Speaking with Creative Spark host Joe Skinner, Sainte-Marie talks about the constricting environment of recording folk music in the '60s — "it seems like it was very expansive and embracing and freeing, but actually it was kind of narrow-minded" — and the (still largely unchanged) exploitative nature of the music industry.
"Business so often has been 'take as much as you can get and give the least that you can," she says. "And it doesn't have to be that way! That's just an old fashioned model, that's the pecking order that came down from Europe. Art can have a great power to it, but business can defeat that."
She goes on to discuss the creation of her 1969 experimental opus Illuminations and her 2015 album Power in the Blood, particularly the song "Carry It On," which has become an anthem of sorts for climate and Indigenous activists in the years since its release. You can listen to the episode below and read Exclaim!'s review of this year's Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On here.
Speaking with Creative Spark host Joe Skinner, Sainte-Marie talks about the constricting environment of recording folk music in the '60s — "it seems like it was very expansive and embracing and freeing, but actually it was kind of narrow-minded" — and the (still largely unchanged) exploitative nature of the music industry.
"Business so often has been 'take as much as you can get and give the least that you can," she says. "And it doesn't have to be that way! That's just an old fashioned model, that's the pecking order that came down from Europe. Art can have a great power to it, but business can defeat that."
She goes on to discuss the creation of her 1969 experimental opus Illuminations and her 2015 album Power in the Blood, particularly the song "Carry It On," which has become an anthem of sorts for climate and Indigenous activists in the years since its release. You can listen to the episode below and read Exclaim!'s review of this year's Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On here.
