芭菲·圣玛丽

Buffy Sainte-Marie (born Beverley Jean Santamaria; February 20, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and social activist.

Sainte-Marie's singing and writing repertoire includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism, and her work has often focused on issues facing Indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada. She won recognition, awards, and honors for her music as well as her work in education and social activism. In 1983, her song "Up Where We Belong", for An Officer and a Gentleman, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 55th Academy Awards. The song also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song that same year.

From the early 1960s, Sainte-Marie stated she was of Indigenous Canadian ancestry. A 2023 CBC News investigation concluded she was born in the United States and is of Italian and English descent. Some Indigenous musicians and organizations called for awards she won while falsely claiming an Indigenous identity to be rescinded. Many of her awards and honors were subsequently revoked or surrendered due to her lack of Canadian citizenship, including her membership in the Order of Canada, her induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, her Juno Awards, and her Polaris Music Prizes.

Early life and education

Sainte-Marie was born at the New England Sanitarium and Hospital in Stoneham, Massachusetts, to Albert Santamaria and Winifred Irene Santamaria, née Kenrick. The Santamarias were from Wakefield, Massachusetts. Her father's parents were born in Italy while her mother was of English ancestry. Her family changed their surname from Santamaria to the French-sounding "Sainte-Marie" due to anti-Italian sentiment following the Second World War.

Sainte-Marie taught herself to play piano and guitar before attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Career

1960–1978: Rise to prominence

During the early 1960s, while still in college, her own songs such as "Ananias", the Indian lament "Now That the Buffalo's Gone", and also "Mayoo Sto Hoon" (a Hindi Bollywood song "Mayus To Hoon Waade Se Tere" originally sung by the Indian singer Mohammed Rafi from the 1960 movie Barsaat Ki Raat) were in her repertoire. In her early twenties she toured, developed her craft, and performed in various concert halls, folk music festivals, and First Nations communities across the United States, Canada, and abroad. She spent considerable time in the coffeehouses of Yorkville and Greenwich Village as part of the 1960s folk scene, as did other emerging artists, including Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Gordon Lightfoot.

In 1963, while suffering with a throat infection, Sainte-Marie became addicted to codeine, an experience that became the basis for her song "Cod'ine", later recorded by Donovan, Janis Joplin, and many others. That same year, Sainte-Marie witnessed wounded soldiers returning from the Vietnam War when the U.S. government was denying involvement. This inspired the composition of her widely acclaimed protest song "Universal Soldier", released on her debut album It's My Way! on Vanguard Records in 1964. It was later a hit for both Donovan and Glen Campbell.

Her 1965 album Many a Mile included "Until It's Time for You to Go", which has been covered by Neil Diamond, Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell, Barbra Streisand, Andy Williams, and many others.