Buffy Saint-Marie - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London UK 1992 | ALBUMS THAT SHOULD EXIST

 

Buffy Saint-Marie - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 11-11-1992

Paul says "Here's a BBC concert by American singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. 

I've already discussed Sainte-Marie some when I posted a "Songwriters' Circle" album that she was involved in. You can read more about her there, including a Wikipedia link to even more:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/01/donovan-buffy-sainte-marie-roger-cook.html

I'll just add some more information relevant to this album. Sainte-Marie had a successful career in the 1960s and early 1970s. But then she went 16 years without releasing an album of new music. That changed in 1992, with her album "Coincidence and Likely Stories." It was mostly ignored in the U.S., failing to make the charts. But it got a better reception in Britain, even resulting in two minor hit singles there. "The Big Ones Get Away" in particular made the Top Forty. So the songs here are about an even split between those from her most recent album at the time and her best known songs from earlier in her career.

This concert has been pretty much impossible to find on the Internet, as far as I could tell. But musical associate Progsprog had a copy and passed it on to me. So a big thanks to him. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 56 minutes long. 

01 talk 
02 Getting Started 
03 talk 
04 The Piney Wood Hills 
05 talk 
06 The Big Ones Get Away
07 I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again 
08 talk 
09 Disinformation 
10 talk 
11 Universal Soldier
12 talk 
13 Fallen Angels 
14 Until It's Time for You to Go 
15 talk 
16 Bad End 
17 Soldier Blue 
18 talk 
19 The Priests of the Golden Bull
20 talk
21 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee 
22 talk 
23 Starwalker 

It should perhaps be mentioned, or reminded perhaps, that there was a particularly heinous disgusting attack on Buffy’s ancestry and ethnicity by alt-right sources about her being adopted (she was) and not authentic native American, the most beautiful response coming from her Mic-Mac ‘adopted’ family who claimed her as their OWN!

Follow links to see my previous posts on the matter

I will always mention this in the light of how wonderful and illuminating a force of nature Buffy was to me

read on here about the cultural fascism facing indigenous peoples of America and Buffy’s experience

ZEROSOUNDS CATCH UP No 4 | Buffy St. Marie

Now again I have mentioned Buffy early on and her influence via Donovan over here was an early inspiration both for her songwriting,vocal delivery and striking image that I was so drawn to. This from Zero G is well worth checking out and no mistake. It does appear from Zero’s notes to be something of an anomaly but for fans this is essential . . . if challenging! Truly a creative tour de force

Buffy Sainte-Marie - Illuminations (1969)

In the year 2000, the Wire magazine picked this spaced out gem from Native American folksinger and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie as one the "100 Albums That Set the World on Fire", originally released in 1969.

 Interestingly enough, it's a record Sainte-Marie doesn't even list on her discography on her website. It doesn't matter whether she cares for it or not, of course, because Illuminations is as prophetic a record as the first album by Can or the psychedelic work of John Martin on Solid Air. For starters, all of the sounds with the exception of a lead guitar on one track and a rhythm section employed on three of the last four selections are completely synthesized from the voice and guitar of Sainte-Marie herself. There are tracks whose vocals are completely electronically altered and seem to come from the ether -- check out "Mary" and "Better to Find Out for Yourself" as a sample. But the track "Adam," with its distorted bassline and Sainte-Marie throwing her voice all over the mix in a tale of Adam's fall and his realization -- too late -- that he could have lived forever, is a spooky, wondrous tune as full of magic as it is mystery and electronic innovation. 

The songs here, while clearly written, are open form structures that, despite their brevity (the longest cut here is under four minutes), break down the barriers between folk music, rock, pop, European avant-garde music and Native American styles (this is some of the same territory Tim Buckley explores on Lorca and Starsailor). It's not a synthesis in any way, but a completely different mode of travel. This is poetry as musical tapestry and music as mythopoetic sonic landscape; the weirdness on this disc is over-exaggerated in comparison to its poetic beauty. It's gothic in temperament, for that time anyway, but it speaks to issues and affairs of the heart that are only now beginning to be addressed with any sort of constancy -- check out the opener "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" or the syncopated blues wail in "Suffer the Children" or the arpeggiated synthesized lyrics of "The Vampire." When the guitars begin their wail and drone on "The Angel," the whole record lifts off into such a heavenly space that Hans Joachim Rodelius must have heard it back in the day, because he uses those chords, in the same order and dynamic sense, so often in his own music. 

Some may be put off by Sainte-Marie's dramatic delivery, but that's their loss; this music comes from the heart -- and even space has a heart, you know. One listen to the depth of love expressed on "The Angel" should level even the crustiest cynic in his chair. Combine this with the shriek, moan, and pure-lust wail of "With You, Honey" and "He's a Keeper of the Fire" -- you can hear where Tim Buckley conceived (read: stole) the entirety of Greetings From LA from, and Diamanda Galas figured out how to move across octaves so quickly. The disc closes with the gothic folk classic "Poppies," the most tripped out, operatic, druggily beautiful medieval ballad ever psychedelically sung. That an album like Illuminations can continue to offer pleasure 32 years after it was recorded is no surprise given its quality; that it can continue to mystify, move, and baffle listeners is what makes it a treasure that is still ahead of its time.  - allmusic.com      

Tracklist:
01. God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot
02. Mary
03. Better To Find Out For Yourself
04. The Vampire
05. Adam
06. The Dream Tree
07. Suffer The Little Children
08. The Angel
09. With You, Honey
10. Guess Who I Saw In Paris
11. He's A Keeper Of The Fire
12. Poppies

A Dream at the End of the Day :: BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE - The Dream Tree

Buffy Sainte-Marie, “The Dream Tree”
Illuminations, 1969

Song of The Day - Passing Through - Various artists (Leonard Cohen and Joan Baez)

this cover of “Passing Through” was recorded for the 1975 album the Earl Scruggs revue anniversary special. the track, arranged by Leonard Cohen, features Joan Baez, Cohen, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and the Pointer Sisters; also Joan Baez’s Bob Dylan impersonation is both spot on and totally hilarious

O My Soul

Tell the people that you saw me passing through . . . . . . . 

SONG OF THE DAY - Co'dine - Buffy Sainte- Marie

      We have had references to Buffy quite a bit sneaking in lately (E.G. Donovan's Universal Soldier) so here's one for her. The struggle with pain killers and any opiate/opioid is especially relevant today and something I know quite a bit about but people may not all be aware that Codiene is a opium derivative  and as addictive as any from morphine to heroin to the synthetics Tramadol and Hillbilly heroin so called [oxycodone] Many hide their opiate origins and codeine was one such tucked away in things like Cocodamol etc