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DVDfever.co.uk – Buffy Sainte-Marie: Running For The Drum CD reviewElly Roberts reviews
Cooking Vinyl Records
- Released: July 2009
- Rating: 8/10
- Vote and comment on this album:View Comments
Sixty seven year-old Canadian songbird returns after a 15 year absence.
Beverley (Buffy) Sainte-Marie will always be remembered for her stirring rendition of the title song from cult movie Soldier Blue featuring Candice Bergen, 1970.
Buffy was born on the Piapot Cree Indian reservation in QuAppelle Valley, Saskatchewan on August 2 1941. She was adopted by a white family.Since she began her music career in the early 60s, shes been one of the most outspoken musicians of her generation singing about the plight of the native American Indian, to the extent that in the 60s US president Lyndon B. Johnsons government blacklisted her, (White House stationary recorded that her music deserved to be suppressed).
She continued undaunted building a solid reputation on the folk scene in Canada and USA with luminaries such as Elvis, Bobby Darin, Streisand and Cher covering her songs.Since then, shes broadened her repertoire considerably indulging in blues, country, rock, soundtracks and even pop, co-writing Oscar winning ballad Up Where We Belong (Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes from Office And A Gentleman). Shes even added her own lyrics to the traditional America The Beautiful, which she sang at the NASA launch of the first Native American astronaut Commander John Herrington, included here.
The eclecticism continues on Running For The Drum, an album that covers issues (she good at issues remember) such as greed on the atmospheric opening track No No Keshagesh propelled by some mighty drum programming by Jim Birkett.Follow-up Cho Cho Fire tells the tale of having fun and honours the time honoured tradition of a powwow, dressed by the chanting skills of the Black Lodge Singers. Buffys idiosyncratic vibrato is on full throttle here. Further powwow samples cover the throbbing political rocker Working For The Government a song about multi-national undercover uber-spooks and the money-laundering enterprise, called war.
Up to now its been all-out-beats, but its her return to her folk roots than make the biggest impression and impact, such as the stripped back Little Wheel Spin Spin, where shes playing guitar backed by ambient effects. Better still is the gorgeous tale of longing – Still This Love Goes On. This is definitely Buffy at her very best.MOR torch song Too Much Is Never Enough, a reflective song about regret, is probably the albums emotional highpoint, dedicated to heroes and the ones than love them.
Bluesy ballad When I Had You is another standout track, and in fairness, considering shes not an out-and-out blues singer, she handles the lyrics beautifully without a hint of vibrato. Chris Birkett turns on the magic again with stunning guitar solos. She also shows a fine pair of tubes on Rockabilly blast Blue Sunday, a kind of tribute to Elviss early sound.
The verdict: Welcome back Buffy.
Weblinks:buffysainte-marie.com /cookingvinyl.com
The full list of tracks included are :
1. No No Keshagesh
2. Cho Cho Fire
3. Working For The Government
4. Little Wheel Spain And Spin
5. Too Much Is Never Enough
6. To The Ends Of The World
7. When I Had You
8. I Bet My Heart On You
9. Blue Sunday
10. Easy Like The Snow Falls Down
11. America The Beautiful
12. Still This Love Goes OnView the discussion thread.blog comments powered by Disqus= 0) {query += ‘url’ + i + ‘=’ + encodeURIComponent(links[i].href) + ‘&’;}}document.write(”);})();//]]]]>]]>
Elly Roberts passed away in 2011, but he was a man who was so passionate about all types of music and loved meeting his musical heroes, such as Mick Hucknall at a book signing at the Trafford Centre, Manchester in 2007.
A former teacher and also a music journalist, DJ and radio presenter on local community station Calon FM, plus appearances on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 2, Elly started doing reviews for DVDfever.co.uk in 2004 and he did the majority of the CD and concerts reviews on the website.
I know also that he loved getting away for the summer to Spain and I hope that wherever he is now he is enjoying the hot sunshine and, as one of his friends has said on his Facebook page, that he is interviewing his musical heroes.