Buffy Sainte-Marie – The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie (1970):  The first Native American recording artist that I became familiar with is Buffy Sainte-Marie.  Hers is one of the strongest vibratos that I have ever heard in a singer, and I think it is fair to say that her music is an acquired taste.  The opening track on Buffy Sainte-Marie’s powerful debut album, It’s My Way! (1964), “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone” is one of the most effective protest songs that I have ever heard.  By the mid-1960’s, the “cowboys vs. Indians” dynamic in decades of Hollywood and television Westerns had been replaced by a growing appreciation for the nobility and dignity of Native Americans.  In some quarters, it had become chic to claim some Indian ancestry, even in “polite society”.  “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone” is basically a plea by Buffy Sainte-Marie to those people to help Native Americans who were, and are, still struggling.  The song’s lyrics demonstrate clearly that Native Americans were treated much worse in defeat than Germany was, and also that land grabs and broken promises were not merely centuries-old history but were still occurring today – dramatically and poignantly ending with the lyrics:  “It’s here and it’s now / You can help us dear man / Now that the buffalo’s gone”.  The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie provides a good overview of her music.  Buffy Sainte-Marie is primarily a folksinger but has also made rock and country recordings.  Surprisingly, one of the four album sides on The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie has electronic music; one track in particular is a lively song based on a line in a novel by Leonard Cohen, called “God is Alive (Magic is Afoot)”, with looping lyrics that freely interchange the ideas of “God” and “magic”.  Other standout tracks on The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie include “My Country ’Tis of Thy People You’re Dying”, “Until It’s Time for You to Go”, “Cod’ine” (one of the first popular songs to deal with the dangers of drug abuse), “Universal Soldier” (“Universal Soldier” was later an early hit by Donovan, who also recorded “Cod’ine”), “He’s a Keeper of the Fire”, Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game”, “Guess Who I Saw in Paris”, and “Little Wheel Spin and Spin”.