As mentioned previously, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has exposed Buffy Sainte-Marie as Beverly Jean Santamaria, born in 1941 in Stoneham, Massachusetts, with no indigenous ancestry whatsoever. This revelation, though some 60 years too late, should not distract from genuine folk artists of the era.
Bob Dylan, for example, told the world the times were a-changin’, so senators and congressmen please heed the call. Your sons and daughters were beyond your command, and so forth. Bob sounded a lot like Woody Guthrie, but he never claimed to be a relative.
Joan Baez, born the same year at Buffy, did indeed have ancestry on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. The folk purist once covered “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” by The Band. As Baez understood, the song was all about the deprivations of war. In the winter of 65, some folks were hungry, just barely alive.
Odetta Holmes, better known as Odetta, was a leading voice of the civil rights movement, and what a voice it was. She recorded tunes such as “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” and “This Little Light of Mine,” a gospel song. As people may recall, the leader of the civil rights movement was a Christian minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Phil Ochs proved that folk singers could be political in an even-handed way. Check him out on “Love Me, I’m a Liberal.” Here’s Phil is on “When I’m Gone,” and by 1976 the great talent had departed.
Tom Rush, born in 1941, sure knew his way around the guitar. In 1965 he recorded “The Panama Limited,” about a fast train. Around 1970 he sang “I Lost My Drivin Wheel,” but he still carries on at 82.
A mainstay of the Greenwich Village scene was Dave Van Ronk, remembered for “Green Green Rocky Road,” “He Was a Friend of Mine,” about Phil Ochs, and the famous “Cocaine Blues.” Dave was actually from New York, and had no need for a fake identity.
That was also true of the late Pete Seeger, who in 1968 appeared on the Smothers Brothers television show. Despite what people say about him, Seeger was in fact a strumming Stalinist, and that’s how he should be remembered.
Most of the others never got the acclaim their talent deserved. By contrast, Buffy Sainte-Marie gained fame she didn’t deserve. She should be remembered as one of the great fakes of all time.
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