Buffy Sainte-Marie

Here are two short songs (Mary / Isketayo Sewow [Cree Call]) of the famous Native American singer Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Buffy Sainte-Marie (born in 1941) is an Academy Award-winning Canadian musician, composer and visual artist. She was born on the Piapot Cree reserve in the Saskatchewan. By 1962 Buffy began to tour alone, performing in various concert halls, folk festivals and Native reservations across the U.S., Canada and abroad. She spent a considerable amount of time in the coffeehouses of downtown Toronto's old Yorkville district, and New York City's Greenwich Village as part of the early to mid-1960's folk scene, alongside other emerging Canadian contemporaries Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. She quickly earned a reputation as a gifted songwriter, and many of her earliest songs, such as "Until It's Time For You To Go", were turned into hits by other artists including Barbra Streisand, Elvis Presley, Sonny and Cher, Chet Atkins, Roberta Flack, Janis Joplin, Neil Diamond, Ed Ames, Shirley Bassey, Vikki Carr, Carmen MacRae, Andy Williams, among others. Her debut album, "It's My Way", was released on Vanguard Records in 1964 and she was subsequently named Billboard Magazine's Best New Artist. This album also contained the critically acclaimed song "Universal Soldier" that later became a hit for Donovan. She married musician Jack Nitzsche in 1969, and regularly appeared on the children's TV series "Sesame Street" over a five year period from 1976 - 1981. The song "Up Where We Belong", as performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for the film "An Officer and A Gentleman", received the Academy Award for Best Song in 1982. France named Buffy Sainte-Marie Best International Artist of 1993. That same year, she was selected by the United Nations to officially proclaim the International Year of Indigenous People. Buffy was inducted into the Juno Hall of Fame for her life-long contribution to music in 1995 and won a Gemini Award in 1997 for the Canadian TV special "Buffy Sainte-Marie: Up Where We Belong". She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation in Canada in 1998, and was also made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1999, she was inducted and received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. Listen to Buffy's very distinctive voice and enjoy!