Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Buffy Sainte-Marie

Transcript

Buffy Sainte-Marie · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Buffy Saint Marie was never a household name in
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the US, but if you ask her peers, she probably
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: should have been. She was a pioneering artist in the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Greenwich Village folk scene, playing alongside people like Bob Dylan.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: She even helped give Joni Mitchell her start. But in
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the early days of Vietnam, when Buffy was singing protest
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: songs about the casualties of war, she was blacklisted by
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the US government. Her music was barely played on radio,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: but she still found an audience. Her classic songs like
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Universal Soldier have been covered by Elvis Presley, Barbara streisand
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Courtney Love Morrissey, and she was the first Native woman
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to win an Academy Award, though she's probably best remembered
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: by Americans for her controversial stint on Sesame Street, where
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: she taught the cast about her indigenous heritage and Big
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Bird about breastfeeding. Today, at seventy nine year old, Buffy
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: still active. She had a robust touring schedule until, of course,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: this year. Now she's just at home in Hawaii, where
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: she met up with the Rick Rubin. They talk about
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: her blacklisting and why she wrote a song about coding
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: long before any Southern rapper ever did. This is broken
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Here's Rick Rubin and Buffy Saint Marie. I want to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: start by talking about what the world was like when
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: you started making music. What was the original motivation, what
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: maybe you start doing this? What was the culture like?
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I had no choice. I was living in an adoptive
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: family in Maine and Massachusetts. You were born in Canada, Yes,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: maybe I think I was, but I was adopted, so
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you don't really know. So you don't you don't think
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of yourself as Canadian. I think of myself as indigenous
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: North American, and indigenous people in North we predate those borders.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Those borders haven't been around very long. And although most
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Americans would not know, probably a lot of Canadians would
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: know about the Jay Treaty, for instance, which means that
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you know, we can just go back and forth, that
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: we don't need no passport. But most of the guys
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: at the porter don't know that. So as as as
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: an indigenous person in the Americas, you not only have
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the world be the way that it is, which is
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: tough for everybody, but also you get another little set
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of challenges in that most of the other people don't
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: know about you yourself. You're such a small minority. I mean,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: there are so few people of Native American background in
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: show business. I mean there's you know, like Burt Reynolds is, oh, well,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I'm one eighth Cherokee, and my you know, some other
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: celebrities like oah, my grandmother was a Cherokee princess, blah blah.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: But when it comes to real Native American people who
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: have no choice and just there's no alternative to being
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: an Indian. However you call us, and by the way,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: we all say Indian, Native American, indigenous week most of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: us use it interchangeably. How old we when you were adopted?
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: That baby? They don't tell you. Adoptive children have a
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: lot of problems that most people have never thought about.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: You don't get a horoscope, you don't know when you
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: were born, you don't know where you were born. You
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: have a birthday assigned by the court, so you never
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: really know who you are. You know, in the cases
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: of most marginalized kids come from a marginalized community, you
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: don't really know. So I was about three and my
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: family got a piano and a great piano, So that
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: became like my toy. That's what I did instead of
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: sports and Barbie dolls and things. And what was the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: music going on at that time, Like what were you hearing? Well,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: anything that my parents would have on the radio or
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: records that they were had around. So somewhere along the line,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I discovered Tchaikovsky and I loved that. I used to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: listen to Swan Lake and Nutcracker Swede and this thing
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: called in a Persian Market and whenever would come on
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the radio, and I just taught myself how to play
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: and just because it was so much fun. And I
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: never could learn how to read music. So it's taken
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: me all these years. And just a few years ago
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I found out I'm actually dyslexic in music, which I
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: had never heard of. Yea, yeah, so there are a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: lot of There are a lot of people who come
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: to music not through the path of music teachers. Yeah. Yeah.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: What's the first time you ever played in front of people?
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: In the summertime, I used to go over to a
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: state park and I used to sit around a campfire
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: with everybody else and play songs that I'd written, and
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you know, Everly Brothers hits and you know, Fast Domino.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: This was in the fifties, so you asked about, you know,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: what kind of music influenced me. That's what it was.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I heard CLA six as a child or whatever happened
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: to be on the radio, which was, you know, kind
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: of Frank Sinandre era. And then when I really fell
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: in love with music was when I was about I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: must have been eleven or twelve or thirteen, and I
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: used to go down in the basement and I was
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: supposed to be ironing my school clothes, but I discovered
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I discovered rockabilly music on the radio. So Kyle Perkins,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Scottie Moore, they were just my heroes. And I was
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: also lucky enough. I was living in Maine and Massachusetts,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and I used to get on a train and go
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to New York. I had a friend that I had
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: met in Maine at a state park, and he would
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: he invited me to his house, and you know, all
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: our mother's in agreement. It was those days, and we
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: used to go to Allen Freed rock and Roll Show.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And then the Allen Freed rock and Roll Show started
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: coming to Boston as well, so I went there, so
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I used to see people like Joanne Campbell. Nobody's ever
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: heard of Joanne Campbell. Oh, shame on you. Oh man,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: she was hot. I mean she was. She and the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Platters I think were the only women. You know, the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Platters there was one woman. Oh and Laverne Baker. They
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: were the only women. But it was Jerry Lee Lewis,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers and Frankie Lyman. He just
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: play a handful of songs. Yes you got it. Yeah,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: they play maybe two or three songs and then next
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, it was great. It was just such
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a thrill. I knew that that's where I wanted to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: be in the audience, on the stage, backstage. I didn't
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: carry just wanted to be around the music. Would you
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: say at that time, we're all kids into it? Or
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: was it? No? So what again? Like more like what
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: was the world? What was the world like? Then? Like? Um?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Were would you? Would you say you were unusual for
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: being in that group of people. I wasn't in a
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: group of people, which was pretty standard for me because,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: like I said, I lived in two different places. I
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: lived in maineand Massachusetts, so um, I didn't really have
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: tight social groups. I had trouble at home. There were
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: pedophiles in the neighborhood and in the house. So I
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: was kind of a loner kid. And so the music
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: that I was hearing, I was I was with that
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Dominomo than I was with the other kids. And in
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: high school now I'm maybe fifteen sixteen, yeah, and I'm
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: hearing these doo wop and rockabillyum you know, um Buddy Holly,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Elvis Presley. But it wasn't But just so we understand,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: it wasn't all the kids listening to. It wasn't any
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: like subculture music. It was subculture music, but it was
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: it was it was described the grown ups would have
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: thinked it would have thought, oh, it's just cheap, you know,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: that's um uh. They they either would have associated with
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: black people in very ugly terms, or poor people or
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: not us anyway, you know, it was. It was something
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: that was a little um risque. It's just so interesting
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: because looking you know, looking back, we think of both
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the music of the fifties and the sixties as so
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: ubiquitous and so mainstream was not so it was the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: underground music of the day, and good girls didn't listen
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to that kind of music interesting. Yeah, bad boys did. Um,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: so I went through different social thing. I think I
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: went through social demotion because of the music that I liked.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't care. Yeah, because that's what I wanted to do. Anywhoys,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: go home and listen to my records and you felt
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: it in your heart? It was it was not a
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: It made sense to you. It didn't have to make
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: sense to everyone else. Do you think the other people
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: didn't feel it? Think of my own situation, you know,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: the handful of kids hung out with I think they looked.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I think they thought it was sinful. They wouldn't have
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: used that word, and they weren't really churchy, but they
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: were definitely you know, it was just like looked at
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: beneath them. They would think it was beneath them, think
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: that it would they be ashamed to listen to it.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Do you think I think they hadn't discovered it. Tell
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: me your first experience of folk music. Oh gosh, let's see,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I guess I was in college. I went to the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: University of Massachusetts and I got a degree in teaching
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and a degree in oriental philosophy. By the way, you
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: started out in philosophy, I heard ye see, I've always
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: considered myself very fortunate in that I came along into
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: show business kind of by accident. I didn't really, you know,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I just surprising that I was there at all. But
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I was called a folk singer because that's what they
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: were trying to sell. So I came to Greenwich Village
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: straight from college. But here I was in New York
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: City for the first time, and I was a songwriter.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: But you weren't supposed to be one yet, and the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: folk police could get after you, and if it was
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: it acknowledged at that time that folk music was really
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: an old form being brought back. So it was everyone
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: knew that this is old music. I think. So we
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: think of the sixties as when folk music started. Really yeah, okay, yeah,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: so's it's interesting that it actually even then it was
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: old music. Yeah, it was just a new wave of
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: this old music. It was interesting in these old forms
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: of music. And like I said, I felt as though
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I was very fortunate to come along when I did.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: In the first place. The window to show business was
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: just the left opened by accident. I think, you know,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: we were coming out of the Eisenhower generation, and it
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: was like Frank Sinatra and you know that kind of
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: um loungy big bands was still around. But I was
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: very lucky because I didn't know any think about folk music.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I was. I was just giving over my degree in
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: orial plosity, and I stepped on stage and I sang
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: these songs. Now, I was lucky enough to be around
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: real folk singers like Pete Seeger New and McCall jon Bias,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: who sang songs that were four or five hundred years old.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: They were real folk songs. And see that really thrills
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: me as a person who doesn't read music. And I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: don't come from any kind of formal music background, including
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the Paul Simon kind of music background where you grow
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: up in New York. Your uncle's in the business, your
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: other uncle's a lawyer, and somebody else, you know what
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I mean. I don't come from that and marginalized people.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I think would I think it would be very surprising
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to most of you guys who are really solid in
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the record business and have not really experienced what it's
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: like to be really marginalized and not know anybody, not
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: have a rolodex, not not have an addressed book, not
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: know how it's done. Who does it? I mean we
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: don't even know where the door is. There's no way
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: for Native American people to get into show business. There
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: just isn't and it's very rare anyway. I think for
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: anybody in show business to hold the door open for
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: anyone else, it's just like, I'm here, how do you
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: like me? Now? You know? But I didn't feel like that.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, I carried Joni Mitchell's tape around in my
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: purse for long time, long months and months, and I
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: played it for all kinds of people in the music business.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: How did you first run into Jonie? Well, she was
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a fan of mine, and I don't know where it was.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: It could have been a Saskatchewan and Minneapolis or somewhere.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: We were both on the road and I heard about
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: her and I heard her musing. I just thought she
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: was just great. I thought, oh, she's great, she's beautiful,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: she's smart, she's got she wants to she wants to
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: do this. Nobody wanted to hear it. So finally I
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: played her stuff for Elliott Roberts and told him to
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: go down to the where, I don't know, the Black
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Cat Cafe or one of those little clubs in the village,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and they made a great career together, but it was very,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: very hard. People who really are connoisseurs of folk music
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: would realize the folk music comes from everywhere. It's just
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: music made by folks. It's not just music made by
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the chosen few who are making the music business some money.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: We're going to invest in this, We're going to keep
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the public thinking that it's very folky, but really we're
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: pumping dollars out of it. I mean, so many people
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: made money on what he got three and well even
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Bob Marley later, right, I mean, you and I are
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: in the music business. We know where it's at. There's
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: always been people who are in the business to make money,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and they've always been people in the business to make
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: great art. It just there's both paths, Yes, there are.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: And I think most most non musicians, just most listeners
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: wouldn't realize that. And I think that most new artists
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: don't know that. And I think the record business has
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: been terribly complicit in keeping try to keep them ignorant. Yeah,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and it's a business of sharks, yes it is. I
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: mean I was so green. I had never met a lawyer,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I had never had a conversation with the businessman ever,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I remember when I first went to New York, I
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: was running around in my little heels and mini dresses
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and things. And I remember I went into the Musician
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Union for the first time, which is kind of like
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: walking into the lobby of the Sopranos. I mean, I
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: grew I grew up around Italian American you know, semi
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: mafia people you know in Maine, Massachusetts, idea that and
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I look upon it very kindly, like people in the
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Sopranos would, because I was seeing the family side of that,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: but the business side of that, wherever it's coming from,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: whether it's people whose roots are in this part of
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Europe or some other part of Europe. Show business was
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: developed in Europe through vaudeville by h by people who
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: were not only concerned with the show, they were also
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: concerned with sustaining the business. I mean, that's not necessarily
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: greed and I'm going to rip off artists, but of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: course the part that we object to is exactly about that,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and they've been artists ripped off forever and ever. So
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I had never met a lawyer or a businessman. I
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: remember when I first went into Vanguard Records and they
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: asked me who my lawyer was, and I said I
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: didn't want I didn't have one, and they said that's okay,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: you can use ours. So I signed a seven year deal.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: How did you know to go to Vanguard? How did
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you How did you know? I was just stupid? Blue
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Note also wanted to sign me. So Vanguard was very big.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Yes she was. Yeah, Joan Byers was already on Vanguard
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and having a fantastic career. Yeah, yeah, so she was.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: She was already signed her first album. I guess was
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: just about time that I showed up and they wanted
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: to sign me, and I said, yeah, I get Depending
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: on how you look at it, I kind of either
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: fell into or lucked into having a career. My first album,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I was Billboard's Best New Artist.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: What just singing these songs that I'd been writing all
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: this time, and they were about everything, and I didn't
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: think it was going to do anything because people were
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: pretty suspect of songwriters anyway. And my first album is
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: called It's My Way. I think they just put it
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: into outer space or something, or into the Library of Congress.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It just got some big honor. I
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: thought it was awful. But everybody else I thought it
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: was awful, oh that it was included, or you thought
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it was awful that the albums oh no, I thought
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the album itself was awful. Oh no, the songs are wonderful,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: but I just think they took the wrong takes. And
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of course an artist had no say in those days,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: like when did you getting into the music business? Just
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: to put me in the date song? Um, ninety mid eighties, okay, okay, okay,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: it was the early days of hip hop music. That's right,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: so nice, so nice. Yeah, so it was. It was.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: It was a scene where at first it was very
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: naive and it was like, yes, students are in the streets,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: we have discovered our brains. We're not going to your
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: freaking warm And there was a lot of protests bubbling under.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I had written Universal Soldier, although everybody, you know, everybody
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: thought Donovan wrote it. And I still have people come
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: up to me today and argue that Donovan wrote Universal
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Soldier in Codine. And see, Donovan was a person of
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: conscience who wrote all of his own songs except for
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: two songs, and those two songs were Universal Soldier in Codine,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: So he got credit for writing those as well, and
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I don't think he ever took credit for it, but
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: his management never pointed out that it hadn't written them. Who,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: how and why did you write codine? Codine? You know,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: for years, until very recently, people wouldn't understand this, but
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: now people would. I was addicted to codeine by a
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: doctor in Florida. I had been playing at Freddy Neil's
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: place in Coconut Grove, you know that little club that
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: he used to have. I don't know. I went to
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: a doctor who said that I had bronchitis. I've been
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: coughing and things. I think I was probably just exhausted
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: from being on the road all the time and practically
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: lived in a bus. And he addicted me to codine.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And he apparently had addicted many young ladies to codine
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and turned them out. And so people who are addicted
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: through their doctors to an opiate, and codeine seats an opiate,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I mean codeine. It sounds oh silly, triket tweet kids stuff.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Codeine is as much of an opiate as heroin is.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: It's an opiate. And just like all the doctor drugs,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the synthetic drugs now like percocet, and you know all
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: of the oxy what's you know oxyconton all of them there, Yes,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: they're all synthetic opiates. If you it's my belief, now
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: you might disagreement. It's my belief that if a person
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: gets into drugs through social reasons, they're very likely to
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: get addicted in a kind of a different, almost more
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: difficult way. You know, they're in and it's fun and
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: it's wonderful, and you know they haven't fun with their friends.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: But if if a doctor addicts you and all of
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: a sudden, you have to leave town. That's what happened
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to me. I had to leave Florida and we were
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: driving through Georgia and I was just feeling horrible, no
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: idea what was wrong with me, and went to a
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: pharmacist to refill a Florida prescription. I didn't know you
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: couldn't do that, and the guys that I can't feel
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: that it's from a different state, But how long have
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you've been taking it? And heap the pharmacists pointed out
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to me that I was addicted to an opiate. I
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: had no idea. I had just been going to the
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: doctor for my shots and for my pills. So I
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: went through withdraw cold turkey. But it wasn't like I
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: ever had any fun on it. So it's kind of
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: a kind of a really interesting that I would have
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I would have guessed had I not known the story
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: that there was a long blues tradition of songs about drugs, cocaine, blues, cocaine,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: like those kind of things. Yeah, I would think, Oh,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: you're doing one of those kind of songs. I would
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: have never guessed it was a personal issue. Oh yeah,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it's amazing, Yeah, because you know, I didn't really have
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that personal I will see at the time maybe twenty two. Yeah,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and see, I don't drink. I still don't drink. I
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: just zero alcohol all my life, just because I never
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: never did. Um. And I I was a girl by myself,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and I looked a certain way, right, I mean I
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: looked a certain way. I didn't run around with some
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: granny dress. I was either smart enough or stupid enough
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to get my first show business dress from the Frederick's
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: catalog and the Fredericks catalog. You even know what that
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: is now, But it used to be this thing. You'd
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: see it advertised in the back of movie magazines when
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I was twelve, right, and it was sexy clothes for women,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: and it was drawn. They weren't photos, they were drawn,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: so they were really they were really pretty. And so
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I ordered this dress and I over dubbed Donald. I
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: made it ever A ragged him, and I mean like
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: a v him. And I showed up in my high
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: heels and think you know, there were people people around,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: like Judy Collins and others in not very flamboyant clothes.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: So I was also making that mistake. So here I
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: showed up. I wasn't singing folk songs. I didn't know
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: how to read music. I didn't had never met a lawyer.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was really mean, and I was wearing
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the wrong thing. And you know, looking back on it,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: all I can say is, you know, be yourself and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: be who you are, because I had an awful lot
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of fun even though I was doing everything wrong. I
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: didn't soar to the top. I didn't become, you know,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the equivalent of Madonna and Michael Jackson. But there were
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: reasons why, and it had nothing to do with lack
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of talent. But those of us, like you and me,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: who are in show business, we know all the things
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: that it takes to make an artist and it's not
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: all good, and it's very tricky for anyone to negotiate
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: as long as it lasts in that kind of center.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I had no idea that there was anybody standing in
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: opposition to me or trying to trip me up. I
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: just thought I was lucky to be there and to
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: get to make one record, you know, and you were.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, the other side of it is, we did
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: get to do it. I did get to do it,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: and I got to do it for my reasons, not
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: so much for show business reasons. And it took I
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: didn't find out for twenty years about I didn't know
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: that there was any such thing as blacklisting, none of
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: us did. I had no idea i'd been taken out.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I had to find out by accident. We'll be back
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: with Rick and Buffy Saint Marie. After a quick break.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: We're back with Buffy Saint Marie, who's explaining why her
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: music was blacklisted by the US government in the sixties.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Do you think the song Universal Soldier is the reason.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: That's what most people say, That's what Wikipedia will say.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: They'll say Buffy Saint Marie was blacklisted by two American
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: presidents because they objected to her outspoken stance expressed in
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Universal Soldier. But I don't think it was that. It
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: wasn't that. That's what's so fascinating about that song is
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: there are lots of anti war songs. There are none
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: from that perspective. That's a wild perspective. Have you heard
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the war Racket? You got to hear the war racket? Okay,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I mean you probably most Americans, even people in the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: business like yourself, lost track of me probably in nineteen
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: seventy or something. And if they already had children, they
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: may have seen me on Sesame Street for five and
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: a half years. They may have. But most people think
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: that I kind of came and went. And that's what
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I thought. I thought, singers common singers go. But I
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: still had a big career in other places, and so
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I thought, oh, you know the US, something else came along.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I actually, you think that the popularity in Canada versus
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: the US had to do with blacklist things? So absolutely,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: so interesting. Absolutely, I was in Canada. I was in
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Toronto one day. Now, this isn't in the eighties. I
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: was in Toronto. I showed up for an interview in
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a radio station and the guy said, I'm going to
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: start this interview with Opati Marie by apologizing to you
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: for having gone along with what I was praised to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: have gone along with on White House stationary. The guy
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: had a letter from the Johnson White House commending him
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: for having suppressed my music, which deserved to be suppressed.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And the only person I knew I could talk it
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: over with besides my lawyer, which I mentioned it to
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: him one day and he suggested, did I get my
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: FBI files? And I said, oh, come on, you know
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I've never broken the law. I've never I'm not even
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the one who parades down the street with a sign.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not that kind of protester. I'm a writer, right,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And the only other person I could tell besides my
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: lawyer was my friend taj Mahal and Tyres and I
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: were classmates together at the University of Massachusetts, and then
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: we both moved to Hawaii, and I had already been
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: here for a long time, and our sons wound up
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: best friends, and our sons wound up being college roommates
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: at Berkeley College and music incredible, I don't know, so anyway,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: we were real good friends, and Tyres pointed out to
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: me that Eartha kit Too had been blacklisted, and he
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: knew some other people who he thought had. So my
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: lawyer said, well, let's get your FBI files. I said, oh,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: there aren't any. Well they were like like thirty one pages.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I think, wow, it's all redacted. I mean, you know,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: they were following me around and making sure that I
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: wasn't something that I ravel rousing. Yeah. No, but I
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't much of a rabbel rousing. I was a writer,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: That's who. I'm a writer and a philosopher. I'm not
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: a card carrying fist pumper. I'm just not remember the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: original inspiration for Universal Soldier again, just because the perspective
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: is tell me the story. I absolutely remember it. Let
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: me let me just set it for it. Okay, I'm
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: in Greenwich fille Is. There's students all over the streets, right.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's about music, and it's about the fact
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that we kind of don't trust mister Man anymore. You know.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: It's like we're coming out of the eyes and our generation.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: It's Kennedy time. Anyway. I was in an airport. I
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: was in San Francisco Airport, coming from Mexico on the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: way to Toronto. I had a concent at the Purple
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Onion and in the middle of the night, some medics
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: came in. They were wheeling wounded soldiers in kearneys and
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: wheelchairs and things, and I got to talk into one
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of the medics, and you know, I asked, I asked him.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: You know, he assured me that there was a war
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: going on in Vietnam and it was horrible. And I
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: just got to thinking, well, who is it Who's responsible
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: for war? Is it these guys? Is it these poor
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: guys lying here? You know, some some private you know,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: he signed up to make the world a better place,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: or a family tradition, or see the world, and now
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: he's lying here. Half dad, right, Well, there's a certain
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: hot responsibility right then, But you know, the night's going on,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the flight's going to leave in the morning. I had
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: nothing to do. I got a long flight ahead of me,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and I'm just thinking about this. So the song really
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: is about individual responsibility for the world we're living in,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: you know, That's that's the way I put it. And
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: it's about alternative conflict resolution. They're all part of the
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: same thing. Okay, So nobody knew I wrote it. Everybody
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: thought Donovan wrote it, so that wasn't the problem. However,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit later I had written this other song.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Was it a big hit for Donovan? It was a
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: hit for Donovan. I couldn't tell you how many of
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the soldo were. I think so yeah, I think it
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: was yeah. But see I didn't I had. I told
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: you I had never met a businessman, and I had
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: been in town, and I had been in Greenwich Village,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know, not very long. And I was singing
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Universal Soldier. I had been singing it in Europe as well.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: That's where Donovan heard it. But I was saying I
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: was singing it at the gas like cafe. Did you
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: ever see that place? Oh, downstairs plays a real famous
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: place for movies to sing past, the hat club, And
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the high women came in and they heard it. And
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the high women were like a preppy group like the
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Kingston Trio, right kind of imagine, you know, for preppy
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: guys singing a lot of folk songs. And they heard
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Universal Soldier and they were coming off this huge hit.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Michael rolled a voter show a Hallelujah right, Oh, it
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: was like number one. They were coming off this hit
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and they wanted to record Universal Soldier, and they said
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: who's the publisher? And I said, what's that And the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: guy at a guy at another table who was a
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: friend of my manager at the time, said oh, I
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: can help you with that right, and he made up
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: a contract at the table. I signed it. He gave
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: me a dollar and he owned the rights to Universal Soldier,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: and Donovan got a hit and he got credit for
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: having written it. So you'll find out as you get
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to know me better. I like to turn things positive.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: The positive about this story is that ten years later
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: I was able to buy back the rights at least
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: part of the rights to Universal Soldier for twenty five
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars, which is a lot of money at that time.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: So I was doing that well to rescue my own song.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And at the same time, see, I had written this
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: song called until It's Time for You to Go. You're
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: not a dream, You're not an angel, You're a man
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: writing like you played at a million weddings. Yeah, and
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: everybody was recordies. I'd been in the sixties. You wrote
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: it in the sixties. Did you ever record it in
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the sixties, sixty three or sixty four? Show? No? Really, Oh,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: maybe sixty four sixty five. Yeah, he said, one of
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: your earl. We really Yeah, I didn't know that I
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: got my second album. I think incredible. Yeah, but okay,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: so I've written this song. Oh god, Bobby Darren recorded it. Now,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: he recorded it in the first the first person to
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: cover it by Bobby Darren was the first person to
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: cover it. Yeah, can I use this guitar? Here? Do
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: we have time for please? Oh? Please? Okay. So the
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: way the way I had written it, da da da,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: You're a man, I'm not a queen. I'm a woman.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Take my I'm not a queen. I'm a woman. Take
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: my hand. We'll make a space in the lines that
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: we plan and he will stay until this time. Oh,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: you to go see how it goes, and he will
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: stay until this time for you to go. Well, it
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: holds what's called a suspension, and most people don't know
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: what that is, but it's it's a da here there's
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: note in here again. Well, Bobby Darren and his musical director,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: they didn't catch that, and they recorded it really vanilla
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: and here's time burned. It dawned on ba ba bam.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: So it's not like every other song right fathered me. Oh,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: it just pissed me off for years. And then many
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: other people who recorded it, like Sonny and Share recorded it, ROBERTA.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Flack recorded it, d Atkins recorded it was How was
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: the Roberta version? Oh it's beautiful piano. Yeah, she does
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: it on piano, and she gets the chords right. I mean,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: the real musicians got the chords right. But whoever followed
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Bobby Darren's Vegas version did not. And Elvis Pressley recorded that,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Barbara Streissen recorded at Boston Pops Orchestra. Everybody recorded it, right.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite version? Oh? Gosh, I loved what Chad
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Atkins did. Glencamble did a beautiful version, and it's been
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: done in other languages too. But anyway, when I was
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: trying to say is that this song kind of brought
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: me to television, and they wouldn't let me on television
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: with Universal's older, right, so I think. But once I
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: got on television, I opened my mouth and I was
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: talking about you know, Native American rights, alternative conflict resolution.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's not who they hired. They wanted a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: chick in a short skirt to come on and sing
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: the song and talk about how much fun it was
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: to you know, celebrity chat, and I didn't do that.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Harry Bellafardi invited me onto the Tonight Show and I
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: sang now that the Buffalo's Gone, which is about the
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: breaking of the oldest treaty and congressional archives, which had
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: been done in the on the administration of George Washington, right,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin, those people, right, they unilaterally broke the oldest
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: treaty in congres rational archives, and now that the Buffalo's
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Gone tells that story. And it was on my first
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: album along with Universal Soldiers. So I did that song
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: with Harry Bellafonte when he filled in for Johnny Carson
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: on The Tonight Show. And the next time that I
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: was invited to come on the Tonight Show to actually
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: be with Johnny, I was told in no, on certain
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: terms that you know, it was to sing celebrity right,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: just no, no, And it's not going to be Universal Soldier,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and it's not going to be any kind of song
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: of you know, asking for change or pointing things out.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Wasn't going to be a protest song. So I turned
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: it down. The screener, I was talking to the screener,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the producers calls you up and
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: talks it over with you. Yeah, we'd love to have
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: you back on, but you know times have changed, so
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you don't want to hear it. We don't want to
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: hear any of that protest stuff, just singing until it's
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: time to go. So I turned it down. So when
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: it comes to you round about way to your question
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: about was I blacklisted because Universal Soldier? No, I was
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: blacklisted because I'm an outspoken person. I was a woman
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: on television pointing out the fact that they were stealing
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Indian land, the particular parts of Indian land that contained uranium.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: You don't want you don't say that right. So anyway,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: j Edgar Hoover, he was not a fan of mine,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: both apparently both the Johnson and Nixon governments. I didn't
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: find out about the Nixon blacklisting until gie a few
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: years ago on the Internet a guy from the CIA,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: not the FBI. The CIA also was talking about Cotel
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: pro you know, and me and other a few other
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: artists being followed, and really it was an attempt to
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: shut us up. Now at a certain point, all of
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: a sudden, I couldn't get any airplay. It didn't matter
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: what we recorded. I was I was recording in nash
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: We're leaving a whole lot out. I was spending time
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: with chet Atkins. Chet Atkins fixed me up with Norbert
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Putnam's Eric Code six one five bands, just solid, wonderful band,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, and we were making really good records.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, I want to give you a list because
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I think probably I've done some I think you've probably
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: lost track of me significantly enough so that you've probably
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: missed eighty percent of what I've done. That's good, and
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: you've probably heard just a few little things. But I'll
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: feel ye an after this great and we'll put together
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: a playlist based on what you give me, and we'll
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: attach it to this, to this interview that everyone could hear. Yeah,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I think it would be interesting to people because you know,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: you know how it is. You've you've known an lot
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: of artists with long careers. Yes, and things change and
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: you come and go and you For me, it's always
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: been like people think that you're so creative when you're
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: out there on the road right, no time to be creative,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: and you barely have a chance to get a nap.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: You're exhausted all the time, and then you take you
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: take some time off and they think that you've not
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: creative anymore, which is when, at least in my case,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: that's when I'm most creative. Yeah, there were also some
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: show business mistakes I think that I made, taking certain
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: people off and just not just not being much of us.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not much of a social networker at all. I
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: didn't go to the right party. But what I've had,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I think has been a different kind of life than
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the lives of my peers in show business. I never
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: did drink so and I was afraid of man because,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: like I said, in my childhood, it was Peter. It
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: was just it was. There are a lot of pet
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: files around, so I was kind of I was afraid
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: of men. And I didn't go to bars. And that's
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: where all the deals I made after the show. You
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: go out with the business people and you make nice
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: and everybody has a few drinks and you sit around
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: and there's wine and there's livity blind who knows what alice?
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: While I wasn't there, I don't even know what there
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: was what else because I wasn't there, and I wasn't
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: there for good reasons. I was by myself. I wasn't
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: a guy, and I wasn't a girl with an entourage
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: around her. I didn't have strong management. I was just
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: a little piece of something, and I knew how you
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: get treated when you show up in the wrong place
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: at the wrong hour. So I think I did really
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: well in negotiating show business on my own terms to
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the end where I feel very satisfied as a writer
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: and an artist and the places that I've been and
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: the people that I've met and the things that I've done.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I took sixteen years off in the middle of my
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: career to raise my son, and the first five of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: those we were on Sesame Street. Then when it was
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: time for him to go to school, I said, well,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: you know, we Reagan had cut the budget to the
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: arts for Sesame Street and we had already been on
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: five and a half years, and when he did that,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: it would have meant that we would have had to
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: move to New York or just not be a part
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: of it anymore. So I asked my son, who was
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I guess from five at the time. I said, do
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: you want to still live in Hawaii or do you
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: want to live in New York? And he said Hawaii,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: And that's what I was hoping. He was a good choice. Yeah,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: so I took time off. We'll be back with Rick
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: and Buffy Saint Marie after a quick break. We're back
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: with Buffy Saint Marie. Tell me where a song comes
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: from for you? I wish I knew. I just don't know.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: So usually start with an idea or might it start
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: with music? It might I might be fooling around with
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: my guitar or my piano or you know, any any
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: kind of a dram anything. I don't know, what just
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: pops into your head. I don't know. Just I think
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: I write the same way that I did when I
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: was three, which is might be bad news for some people,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: but it's kind of good news for me, and it's
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: all I got. Yeah, I think it's only good news
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: because it's you were playing. So if you're keeping the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: childlike play, that's it. That's only good thank you. That's
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: exactly it for me. The music is playing. And I
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: know that there's a lot of work, and like I said,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: this show and you got to show up, and there's business,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: but that that initial thing, the thing that keeps us happening,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: you know, wanting to be musicians every day, is the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: fact that it's fun. What's the story of Little Will
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Spin and Spin? Oh, thank you. It's just talking about
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: our kind of like the human condition all the time,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: whether you're talking about the schoolyard or the church, or
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah business or politics. There's this idea
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: of this think local, act locally, think globally. It's like
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: a gearing the way that you're making things happen in
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: your family life at home, in your personal life, inside
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: your heart and mind, where you know things are going on.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: It really really does affect the neighborhood, your island, or
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: your community, your nation, the world. It really does. So
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: it says things like, Merry Christmas, jingle bells, christ is
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: born in the Devil's in hell. Hots they shrink, but
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: pockets swell. Everybody knows, nobody tell right, it's like Christmas time. Yeah,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: it says, blame the Angels, Blame the Fates, Blame the
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Jews or your sister Kate, teach your children how to hate.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: And the big wheels turn around and around. Oh, the
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: sins of Caesar's men, cry the pious citizens who petty thieve,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: the five and tens and the big whales turn around
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: and around. Turn your back on weeds. You've hold silly,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: sinful seeds, You've sowed at your strata. The camel's load, honey,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: prey like hell, when your world explode. Little wheel spin
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: and spend, big wheels turn around, Nan says, swing your
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: girl fiddle, or say later on the piper, pay Josie
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: do swing and sway dead, will dance on judgment Day.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Little wheel spin and spin, the big wheels turn around
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: and around. So I think some of my songs they've
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: definitely written by a philosopher. I have two kinds of
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: protest songs and then other songs of empowerment. You got
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: to Run is one of them, carry it on as another.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: It's the opposite of a protest song. A protest song
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: will lay out what the problem is. And this other
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: kind of song for which we don't have a name
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: for the genre, is like the solution beautiful. Yeah it works,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: but nobody's doing it right now. And you know, I
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: do a lot of interviews, and a lot of interviewers
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: are asking me, well, where are the great protest songs
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: right now? And all I can said is a hip hop,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: you know rap. You know, it's kind of hard to find,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: But I think the sentiment to drive the creature video
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: is still there among young people and the rest of us.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: But I don't know what is happening with you know, hello,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Paul Simon and Sting and you know some of the
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: other people who've made a freaking fortune a fortune. How
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: can they see these things going down and not respond
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: with their just the heart of their talent and brains.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: You know, they're I don't know where their songs are,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: do you know? I don't know. Are you hearing people
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: write that kind of songs anymore? I hear I hear
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: young artists doing protest songs. I've um they exist. They exist,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: they're not They're clearly not in the mainstream, and they're not.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: They don't seem to have the same impact that they
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: once did. And I don't know why that is. In
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the sixties, they were making money off protest music, right,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I wasn't getting much money out of Universal Soldier,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: but Donovan's people were, And so was the guy who
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: had given me one dollar, who stole the right how
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: he didn't steal him, he didn't. I was just green.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: I was just dumb. No, I don't. I'm not mad
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: at him for that. That was just me. How did
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: you end up meeting um? Jack? Nichi? Jack Nichi? Jack,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: you were married yet? Okay, I know very little? Not then, Okay,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you. Okay, I told you I was a
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: philosophy major, which you can dig because you were philosophy
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: major too. Okay. So one of the people I came across,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: of course, with Friedrich Nizzi, and Friedrich Nizi unfortunately was
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: totally u misportrayed by the Nazis who just misconstrued a lot. Anyway,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: he was a great philosopher and I really thought he
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: was terrific. Um. So I'm already recording for Vanguard. I
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: don't know how many albums I've made for them. But
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Jack Nietchi saw cash Box Magazine the picture of he
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: said he fell in love with me, but my picture
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: in cash Box magazine and got in touch with then
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: he my records, right, got in touch with Maynard Solomon
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: and just was begging to make a record with me.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: And I guess it was Oh, you know, I was
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: already in Nashville working with chedd Atkins, which was a
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: dream come true. Oh God, he was wonderful anyway, Jack,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: That's how Jack discovered me and Jack wanted to make
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: an already working with Neil. He had already been working
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: with Neil. He had already been working with Neil Young. Yes,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: and so Jack wanted desperately to make a record with me.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: And I didn't even know who he was except that
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: he was He was the He was the grandson of
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Friedrich Netzi's brother. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, it's
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: that Nietzi. Those are the Nietzi's we're talking about. So
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: really his name, Yes, that's really here. We thought that
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: was his stage name. No, oh, no, he come he no.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: You know, people will tell you terrible stories. Jack himself
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: would tell you terrible stories about himself. Jack died a
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: few years ago, by the way, So we we met.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: We made this album called He Used to Want to
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Be a Ballerine or I think it's the worst record
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: either one of us ever made, but some people liked it.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: But it has a few really nice things on it.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: So anyway, every now and then Jack had called me
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: up and he'd need something like he needed me. He
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: was he was scoring performance Donald Campbell's movie. It was
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Mick Jagger's first acting role performance. It's really good too.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: It's a great movie and great score. I mean Jack
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: in case you're in case our listeners don't understand Jack
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: nets Is. He's very very well known for movie composer
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: and totally original, you know, and he doesn't use ghosts
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: to write his music. He was really really unique talent,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: very wonderful talent. God. He wrote beautiful things that most
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: people will never hear. And I was scoring my own movies,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: but I was also working with Jack from time to
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: time because Jack was all in love see, and I
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: didn't see him for years and years and years, and
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: then he came back into my life because he said
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: that he was scoring a movie and it was a
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: real good movie with Richard Kere and Deborah Winger, and
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: he couldn't come up with a main theme. I don't know.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't understand that at all. Jack is, he's just
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: a brilliant composer, but he can't improvise. And I've never
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: understood that. See. I'm a writer too, but I can't read.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: So there's all kinds of ways to approach music, and
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: they're all good. There's no right way, and it's a
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: mystery every time. See. So Jack wouldn't go up with
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the melody and he came to visit me, brought the
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: director along. I hadn't seen him in a long long time.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: And by that time I was done with Sesame Street.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: I was raising my son by myself here in Hawaii,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: and Jack showed up and I played him love lift
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: us up where we belong? Right? And I played the
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: whole melody and the bridge and everything, and that became
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: the main theme for an Officer and a Gentleman, and
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: it became the main theme for the song up will
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: We Belong, which was my melody, a little thing that
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Jack wrote, and then words by Will Jennings, genius Will Jennings, Yes,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: oh god, what a writer. But Jack didn't tell the
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: movie director that I had written it. He pretended he
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: had written it. Yeah, so at some point he had
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: to tell Taylor Hackford that he had not written it.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: And so this was not a big deal because movie
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: companies would know how to handle that, but it was.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: It was very weird. I wrote a lot of things
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: that went into Jack's scores, but he would always tell me, no,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: don't don't tell anybody because and I didn't care anyway.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: All was, as you know, a little bit here, a
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: little bit there, and so eventually we got married. That's
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: a big jump, though, from a terrible jump to leave me.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: It was a leap of stupidity. How did that happen? Happen? Oh? God,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I had lost track of Jack, So there was an
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: awful lot that I didn't know. Yes, I was raising
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: my son in Hawaii and doing education and concerts in
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: foreign countries. But the US didn't love me anymore, so
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: about Jack's police record. I didn't know about anything. And
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: he came along and he was so nice to my
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: little boy and carrying him around in his shoulders, and
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: wouldn't it be wonderful and blahity blah and I've been
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: out shopping for the ring and this is what he
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: told me. Oh, anyway, I kind of just I just said, yes,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: I liked him. We had been friends. We were musical
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: at this point. Well, yeah, I had known him for
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: a long length of time, but there were many years
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: where there was no calendar at all. It was him
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: for years. Yes, yeah, and I had known in the sixties.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: When I knew him, he's kind of cuckoo, but he
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: was on best behavior when he came back into my life,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: and we were married for just a short time when
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I realized I was in deep trouble. And you know,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: I say this in all Calvin d Did he have
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: a drug problem? I don't know much at all. Oh, well,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: you know there's a filmmaker named Christians Saint Clair I
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: believe his name is, who's making a movie about Jack.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: And he asked me to speak out because I don't
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: talk about Jack, and I said, only if Jack's son,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Jack Junr, is part of this, which he was. So
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: I saw a little bit of about I saw a
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: little bit of what Keith Richards did because he and
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Keith were very good friends, and what Jack and Willie
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Deville had done together lots and lots of clips. And
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: I did my peace too. But I don't think it's
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: come out yet. And I really don't feel comfortable in
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: describing Jack in any way except to tell you that
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: he was super brilliant, I mean genius brilliant, you know,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: seems a very unique intelligence. He was brutal. He would
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: tell you that everybody in Hollywood thinks he's an asshole,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: and that they he was right. He would do terrible,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: terrible things because of his he had. He had a
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: mental problem exacerbated like you know, an awful lot of
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: people exacerbated by alcohol. So he was an alcoholic and
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: drugs exacerbated, but his real problem was a mental problem.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Friedrich Nietzi died in a mental institution. So did his father,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: the father of Friedrich Nietzchi, and you know, so it's
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: something that runs in the family. And all I can
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: tell you is in defense of Jack, who was no
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: day at the beach. Yes, and the first to admit
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: it was that, you know, he would get a score
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: of brain chemicals that was just Tara, and he'd lay
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: it on whoever was there, and most of the time
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: that was me. So I hung in there for about
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: eight years and finally finally I had to. I won't
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: I'll spare you the details, but they were pretty dramatic.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: You know. Andrea Warner's book, she wrote an autobiography, She
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: wrote a biography of me. She just called it Buffy
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Saint Mary the Autobiography, and she goes into some of
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: the details. But musicians sometimes, I guess, I guess the
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: reason why I'm willing to talk about it a little
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: bit is to share with you Jack's probably going to
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: go down in history unless you talked to Keith Richards
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: as being a real jerk, And why would I brought
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: up with that for so long? Neil Young also loved Jack. Yeah,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Leslie Morris too, just loves Jack. A few people, just
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: a few. Jack has a few people, and I'm one
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: of them. Who um who even though he was crazy
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: and we know he was crazy and we know he
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: was an asshole, and would agree with all of that,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: but the most honest person I ever met. So many times,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the brilliance comes with other things. It's like, I don't know,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: it's I do. I think sometimes it does, but I
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily think it has to. And I don't know.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: It doesn't excuse either. It doesn't have to and it's
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: not an excuse. But it's true that they come together
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's not. It's like the same that break from
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: reality allows innovation. I think you're right. I think you're right,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: and even less severe breaks with reality, like me wanting
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: to live in Hawaii. You know, I live in the
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: mountains over here, not because I'm Barbie wants to go
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: to the beach. No, it's not that I live here
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: because it is an it's an aberration for a person
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: in show business to hide away in a place nobody
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: can find you. It's an aberration, but it's my aberrations.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: Sounds really healthy to me. It is healthy, and it
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: has been, and it has been for me. So it's
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: always a it's always a balance because you know, people
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: in the US don't understand that I have a big career.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: They don't know because they think, oh, that was the
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: little Indian girl that would make you cry, you know,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: or and I you know, to address that further. You know,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: people people would just think the little Indian girl is
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: mistaken because I wrote a song called My Country chis
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: of Thy People You're Dying, which is Indian one on
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: one in six minutes, and it's heavy. But I tried
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: when I put this album together, of it's a retrospective
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: of all the strong songs, whether they're strongly positive or protest.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: There's not one of them that's pap you know, it's
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: all pretty strong stuff. And when you look back on it,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: you know, how are you going to do that? My
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Country tis of Thy People You're Dying, Universal soldier now
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: the buffalo is gone. I did them exactly the way
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: that I did then, only I'm a better guitar player
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: and a better singer, and we have better recording now.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: My latest album is Power is Medicine Songs, but the
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: one before that, Power in the Blood, is what I
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: would advise first time listeners to hear. I think they
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: I think they'd like that album. It's very diverse, has
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of different kinds of music in it. Great.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, my pleasure. Thanks to Buffy Saint
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Marie for sharing her story and inspiration with Rick. Be
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: sure to check out the playlist Buffy created for us
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: at Broken Record podcast dot com, and also subscribe to
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: where we'll be putting up our old interviews and also
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: new ones, sometimes with some extra content. Broken Record is
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: produced with help from Jason Gambrell, me Belle, Leah Rose,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and Martin Gonzalez for pushing industries. Our theme music's by
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.