 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(March 2020) |
| The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Greatest hits album by | |
| Released | 1970 |
| Recorded | 1964 to 1969 |
| Genre | Folk |
| Length | 75:31 |
| Label | Vanguard |
| Producer | Maynard Solomon |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie is a compilation album taken from her first six albums with Vanguard Records, released in 1970.
Issued as a double-LP set after the financial disaster of Illuminations , the album contains material from all her previous albums but not one track unavailable elsewhere at the time of its release. The compilation was a very modest chart success, returning her to the Top 200 after the failure of Illuminations, from which it does however extract five tracks.
Because Many a Mile has been issued on compact disc only in Italy, and Illuminations and Fire & Fleet & Candlelight were not issued on CD until many years after The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie became her first-ever release on CD in 1990, the compilation has always been of considerable value despite containing no hits except the extremely minor #98 "I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again" (which actually only reached even that position after being re-released after "Soldier Blue"). An abbreviated single-LP version was also released in 1972 with the catalogue number Vanguard 73113.
All tracks are written by Buffy Sainte-Marie except where noted.
| No. | Title | Original album | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Soulful Shade of Blue" | I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again | 2:14 |
| 2. | "Summer Boy" | Fire & Fleet & Candlelight | 2:39 |
| 3. | "Universal Soldier" | It's My Way! | 2:15 |
| 4. | "Better to Find Out for Yourself" | Illuminations | 2:12 |
| 5. | "Cod'ine" | It's My Way! | 5:01 |
| 6. | "He's a Keeper of the Fire" | Illuminations | 2:58 |
| 7. | "Take My Hand for a While" | I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again | 2:30 |
| 8. | "Ground Hog" (traditional) | Many a Mile | 2:13 |
| 9. | "The Circle Game" (Joni Mitchell) | Fire & Fleet & Candlelight | 2:51 |
| 10. | "My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying" | Little Wheel Spin and Spin | 6:49 |
| 11. | "Many a Mile" (Patrick Sky) | Many a Mile | 2:42 |
| 12. | "Until It's Time for You to Go" | Many a Mile | 2:27 |
| 13. | "Rolling Log Blues" | Little Wheel Spin and Spin | 3:28 |
| 14. | "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" (poem by Leonard Cohen / music by Buffy Sainte-Marie) | Illuminations | 4:46 |
| 15. | "Guess Who I Saw in Paris" | Illuminations | 2:25 |
| 16. | "Piney Wood Hills" | I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again | 3:04 |
| 17. | "Now That the Buffalo's Gone" | It's My Way! | 2:45 |
| 18. | "Cripple Creek" | It's My Way! | 1:45 |
| 19. | "I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again" | I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again | 2:57 |
| 20. | "The Vampire" | Illuminations | 2:05 |
| 21. | "Little Wheel Spin and Spin" | Little Wheel Spin and Spin | 2:26 |
| 22. | "Winter Boy" | Little Wheel Spin and Spin | 2:10 |
| 23. | "Los Pescadores" | Many a Mile | 2:01 |
| 24. | "Sometimes When I Get to Thinking" | Little Wheel Spin and Spin | 2:59 |
Billboard (North America)
| Year | Chart | Peak Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Pop Albums | 142 |
Buffy Sainte-Marie, is an Indigenous Canadian-American singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. While working in these areas, her work has focused on issues facing Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire also includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism. She has won recognition, awards and honours for her music as well as her work in education and social activism. Among her most popular songs are "Universal Soldier", "Cod'ine", "Until It's Time for You to Go", "Take My Hand for a While", "Now That the Buffalo's Gone", and her versions of Mickey Newbury's "Mister Can't You See" and Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game". Her songs have been recorded by many artists including Donovan, Joe Cocker, Jennifer Warnes, Janis Joplin, and Glen Campbell.
Vanguard Recording Society is an American record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York City. It was a primarily classical label at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, but also has a catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal jazz, folk, and blues musicians. The Bach Guild was a subsidiary label.
Rising is the third live album, and twentieth album overall, from British singer-songwriter Donovan. It was released on Permanent Records in 1990. The live versions of Donovan's hits guaranteed that Rising would receive a release in both the United States and United Kingdom. Rising was retitled The Classics Live in the United States, 25 Years in Concert in Europe and Atlantis in the UK for marketing reasons. Since the release of Rising, there have been many reissues of the songs from the album under many different titles.
Song to a Seagull is the debut studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Produced by David Crosby, the album was recorded in early 1968 at Sunset Sound and released on March 23, 1968 by Reprise Records.
Minstrel Boy is a compilation album from Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. It was released in the United Kingdom in July 1983 and did not chart.
It's My Way! is the first album by folk musician and songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. It was released in April 1964 by Vanguard Records. It was later released in Britain in the spring of 1965 by Fontana Records. Though the album did not chart, it proved influential in the folk community. It is most famous for two widely covered folk standards, "Universal Soldier" and "Cod'ine", as well as "Now That the Buffalo's Gone", a lament about the continued confiscation of Indian lands, as evidenced by the building of the Kinzua Dam in about 1964. The cover features a mouthbow, which was to be a trademark of her sound on her first three albums.
Many a Mile is Buffy Sainte-Marie's second album, released in 1965.
Little Wheel Spin and Spin is the third album by Buffy Sainte-Marie, released in 1966. It was her only album to reach the Top 100 of the Billboard 200. Its most famous song is "My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying," which displayed a native perspective on the colonisation of North America.
Illuminations is the sixth album by Indigenous Canadian-American singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, released in 1969 on Vanguard Records. From a foundation of vocals and acoustic guitar, Sainte-Marie and producer Maynard Solomon made pioneering use of the Buchla 100 synthesizer to create electronically treated vocals. It was the first quadraphonic vocal album released. The album's only single was "Better to Find Out for Yourself".
She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina is the seventh album by Buffy Sainte-Marie, released in 1971.
Moonshot is a studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie, released in 1972 by Vanguard Records.
Quiet Places is Buffy Sainte-Marie's ninth album and her last for Vanguard Records, with whom she had had a very strained relationship ever since the financial disaster of the experimental Illuminations. In fact, her next album, Buffy, had already been recorded before Quiet Places was actually released and was not to find a label for many months after she had completely broken with Vanguard.
Buffy is the tenth album by Buffy Sainte-Marie and her first after leaving Vanguard Records, with whom her relationship had been strained for several albums.
The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie Vol. 2 is a compilation double album released by Vanguard Records in 1971 covering a large proportion of the material she had released on her first six albums for the label that was not found on the previous year's The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Native North American Child: An Odyssey is a 1974 compilation album released after Buffy Sainte-Marie's departure from Vanguard Records.
Coincidence and Likely Stories (1992) is an album by Buffy Sainte-Marie, her first in sixteen years, during which time she had been raising her son and working on the children's television show Sesame Street. The album itself was largely recorded at Sainte-Marie's home before being sent to producer Chris Birkett for the final production and mixing in London.
"Cod'ine" is a contemporary folk song by singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. Considered one of the earliest anti-drug songs, Sainte-Marie wrote the piece after becoming addicted to codeine which she had been given for a bronchial infection. She recorded it for her debut album, It's My Way! (1964).
This Is Janis Joplin 1965 is an album by Janis Joplin released by James Gurley in 1995.
Medicine Songs is a studio album by Buffy Sainte-Marie, released November 10, 2017, on True North Records. The album includes both new material and contemporary re-recordings of some of her older songs.
The Pathfinder: Buried Treasures – The Mid-70's Recordings is a 2010 compilation album composed of the three studio albums recorded by Buffy Sainte-Marie during her time with MCA Records and ABC Records.
