Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Buyer’s Guide

Buffy Sainte-Marie’s catalog spans more than four decades and multiple musical identities. Where do you start? This guide offers recommendations for listeners at different points of familiarity with her work.

If You’re New to Buffy Sainte-Marie

Start Here: The Best of the Vanguard Years (2003)

The Best Of The Vanguard Years is the logical entry point. It covers her output for Vanguard Records from 1964 through the early 1970s — her most celebrated and influential period — and introduces the range of what she could do: the mouthbow songs, the protest anthems, the love songs, the electronic experiments. This is where "Universal Soldier," "Until It’s Time for You to Go," "Cod’ine," and the mouthbow recordings live. If you want to understand why people call Buffy Sainte-Marie one of the greatest singer-songwriters of the 20th century, this compilation makes the case efficiently.

Or Start Here: Up Where We Belong (1996)

Up Where We Belong was her return to recording after a 16-year silence — and it is a remarkable document of an artist who came back with nothing diminished. The title track (her Academy Award winner) anchors the collection alongside new recordings and live material. It is also a good introduction because the production is modern enough to be immediately accessible while the songwriting retains all of her characteristic depth.

For the Curious: Essential Early Albums

It’s My Way! (1964)

The debut. If you want to understand what the original encounter with Buffy Sainte-Marie sounded like — before anyone knew who she was, before "Universal Soldier" became an anthem, before the critical establishment caught up — this is the record. It arrived fully formed. The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list has recognized the era of folk music this album helped define, even when the specific album hasn’t always received the recognition it deserves.

Illuminations (1969)

The most adventurous record in her catalog. The first-ever electronic vocal album in quadraphonic surround sound. This is what it sounds like when a folk singer decides that the electronic studio is a musical instrument and proceeds to treat it as such, five years before anyone else thought to do the same thing. It sounds like the future.

Fire & Fleet & Candlelight (1967)

The fullest expression of her traditional ballad sensibility. If you love the mouthbow in particular, this album has more of it than any other, applied to old English and Scottish ballads in a way that makes them sound ancient and immediate simultaneously.

For the Dedicated Fan

Once you have the main catalog under your belt, the pleasure of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s discography is in the corners. Native North American Child: An Odyssey (1974) is a distinctive and underappreciated record focused on Indigenous children’s music and oral tradition. She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina (1971) shows her rock-influenced side. And Coincidence And Likely Stories (1992) — her comeback after 16 years of silence — is a genuinely startling document of an artist who had been away for more than a decade and came back with something to say.

See the full Discography page for complete album details.