Americana Music Awards: Seeing Buffy Sainte-Marie Perform on Stage for the First Time

By Wil Comstock

MCAU Contributing Writer

            It’s not like me to get places early, yet here I am in my seat and observing.  What could be more Americana than the Ryman Auditorium? The stage is set for the Americana Music Awards. Soon Buddy Miller will be leading the all-star band, and Jim Lauderdale will emcee the show. Tonight I am biased, biased and not ashamed. The girl I have listened to since eighth grade, and that was a long time ago, will accept a lifetime achievement award.  I cannot wait to see her. I had tickets to see her in Philly in the spring, but she canceled. This will be my first time... first times are always unforgettable.  Tonight I will breath a little of the same air as Buffy Sainte-Marie. 

Buffy Sainte Marie speaks at Middle Tennessee State University (Photo by Chuck Whiting)

            Robert Randolph kicked, and I do mean kicked off the show with his red steel guitar. He was soon joined by The McCrary Sisters and The Fairfield Four with a hair-raising performance of “Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham”. They brought the house down!

            Highlights of the award show for me were seeing Don Henley graciously accept the Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award.  We were all pleased to hear a cut from his new album, Cass County “Pray for Rain”.  Acts that were new to me were Shakey Graves singing “Dearly Departed”. This guy has a new fan in me.  Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops) and Hubby Jenkins gave unforgettable performance mixing roots, blues and operatic styles. I had never heard anything quite like this before. If I had to pick a new favorite, it would be The Lone Bellow. This trio with accompanying horns and strings reminded me of the classic first time performance Ricky Martin gave on the Grammys years ago.  They were that good.

            Keb Mo walked onstage with his guitar slung over his shoulder and told us this would have been BB King’s 90^th birthday. He and Lucille, BB’s guitar, gave a tribute to the last of the great Delta blues men... an incredible tribute and performance.

            Blacklisted by the Johnson and Nixon administrations and here tonight for the Lifetime “Spirit of Americana Free Speech Award”, I rise to my feet as Buffy Sainte-Marie takes the stage.  She explained that her blacklisting was not because of her protest songs but because she was outspoken about the Vietnam War and the outrageous treatment of Native Americans by a government that was still plotting to take their land. Everyone left the stage as she stood alone and performed “Universal Soldier”. I was in tears.

Wil Comstock with Buffy Sainte-Marie (Photo by Chuck Whiting)

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            From MCAU Editor Chuck Whiting: Buffy Sainte-Marie visited Middle Tennessee State University the following afternoon to speak to students in the College of Entertainment and Media. Here are a few highlights:

            * Write "dumb" (simple) to make your songs understandable to everyone.

            * "Play, play, play... Never turn down a gig."

            * Some students gasped when the youthful Buffy told her audience she is 74 years old. "Age doesn't matter," she told them. "For me, every day is better."

            * Always copyright your work. Buffy lost the publishing for her classic song "Universal Soldier" when she accepted a $1 publishing offer on a napkin by an unscrupulous shark. She later bought the publishing back for $25,000.

            * Despite her success, very few Americans know who Buffy Sainte-Marie is (which makes it easier for her to roam freely in the United States without being recognized).

          To learn more about the Americana Music Festival, visit www.AmericanaMusic.org. Visit Buffy Sainte-Marie's website at www.buffysainte-marie.com. 

Americana Music Association to Honor Buffy Sainte-Marie, Don Henley, Gilian Welch, David Rawlings, Ricky Skaggs and Los Lobos

     NASHVILLE -- The Americana Music Association has announced the selection of Buffy Sainte-Marie, Don Henley, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Ricky Skaggs and Los Lobos as Lifetime Achievement Award winners to be presented at its 14th Annual Honors & Awards ceremony, presented by Nissan, on Wednesday, Sept. 16 at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

     Each of these artists will perform and the show will be taped for air on PBS later in the year.

     Buffy Sainte-Marie will receive the Spirit of Americana Award, Free Speech in Music co-presented with the First Amendment Center. Since the 1960s, Buffy Sainte-Marie has been arguably the world’s most visible and vocal Native North American folk singer and social activist, but she’s been so much more, including a visual artist with a doctorate in fine art, an educator, and a philanthropist. She is a Cree Indian from Saskatchewan who was raised as an adopted daughter in Massachusetts. She became a prominent artist on the folk music circuit, appearing on Pete Seeger’s "Rainbow Quest", "The Johnny Cash Show" and even "Soul Train". Her songs wrestle honestly with politics, war and identity. At her most effective, she’s blended personal conscience with philosophical perspective, as with the remarkable song “Universal Soldier.” Sainte-Marie remains outspoken and energetic to this day; she’s back on tour with the new album Power In The Blood, her first studio project in seven years.

     Don Henley will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Trailblazer Award. With a career that helped take the Eagles to the stratosphere and a string of scintillating, hit-producing solo albums, Don Henley is an icon of California-tinged country/rock and thus Americana music itself. Henley was raised in northeast Texas — a fact celebrated on his rootsy new 2015 collection Cass County. Arriving in Los Angeles after college, he joined Glenn Frey in Linda Ronstadt’s band, forging the core of The Eagles, which launched its epic career in 1971. Henley collaborated with Frey, JD Souther, Jackson Browne and others on hits such as “Desperado,” “Take It To The Limit,” and “Tequila Sunrise.” During the Eagles’ long hiatus in the 80s and 90s, he was the most successful solo artist to emerge from the band, and while his sound leaned harder on modern rock, he also continued to work with country artists including Ronnie Dunn, Trisha Yearwood and Alison Krauss. Henley took on environmental issues in the 1990s, founding the Walden Woods Project and the Caddo Lake Institute for ecological education and research. He’s been a prominent voice for artists’ rights in the recording industry as well.

     The Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting goes to Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. 
When the duo's first album, Revival, appeared in 1996, it was a shock wave on the American music landscape. With songs like “Orphan Girl,” folk and bluegrass suddenly had exemplars and stars who were young and worldly, traditional and innovative, and who foreshadowed a new generation with interest in and respect for roots music and its many offshoots. Since then, their songwriting has graced seminal albums of the last two decades including "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" ("Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby”) and their own, "Time (The Revelator)". Their songs exemplify the breadth of Americana music and have been recorded by Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Solomon Burke, Jimmy Buffet, Z.Z. Top, Joan Baez, and The Punch Brothers. Their timeless tunes have also found their way to campfires and parking lot pickers everywhere. Now, six records and two decades into their career, the songwriting team of Welch & Rawlings has created a catalog that we will cherish and sing for generations.

     Ricky Skaggs will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award as an Instrumentalist.
The 1990s revival of bluegrass music depended on a number of indispensible things happening almost at once, and one of those was Ricky Skaggs assertively returning to his Kentucky roots. His wide ranging musicianship and deep feeling for mountain music had been on display from his appearance at age six on the "Flatt & Scruggs" TV show, and it carried on through career stages with Ralph Stanley and Keith Whitley and then to country radio, where he helped fuel a timely neo-traditionalist movement. Skaggs’ country records and his road bands were charged with top flight picking, including his own on mandolin, an instrument he studied at the feet of Bill Monroe himself. In the years since his era-shaping Bluegrass Rules album came out, he’s promoted the art of the bluegrass instrumental and collaborated with unexpected instrumentalists, such as Bruce Hornsby, with unexcelled evangelism and craft.

     In the category of Lifetime Achievement in Performance, the honor goes to Los Lobos.
Far more than “just another band from East L.A.” as an early album title promised, Los Lobos changed the look, sound and language of roots music, making it more inclusive and reflective of the American story. The founding four members, Cesar Rojas, David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez and Conrad Lozano, plus early addition Steve Berlin, have made music of consistent searching fusion since the mid-1970s. The band’s career was bolstered, but by no means defined, by their chart-topping 1987 cover of “La Bamba” for a movie soundtrack. By negotiating a space between traditional Mexican song, L.A. rock and classic soul, Los Lobos nurtured an identity that’s been adventuresome and unifying.

     “These artists have not only influenced the Americana community, but the musical landscape on the whole,” said Jed Hilly, executive director of the Americana Music Association.“They all have been an inspiration to our community and we are humbled they will honor us in song at the Ryman this fall.”

     The Americana Music Fest will occur from Sept. 15-19. To learn more, visit www.AmericanaMusic.org.