Born in the early ’40s on the Piapot Cree Nation reserve, Buffy Sainte-Marie was a toddler when the Canadian government removed her from her family and placed her in foster care. The experience would deeply shape the singer-songwriter’s use of the folk-ballad idiom to speak truth to power on a string of ’60s political anthems, including “Now That the Buffalo’s Gone” and the frequently covered “Universal Soldier.” It's a tradition she also boldly reimagined on works like 1969’s Illuminations, an early example of synthesizer-based composing that would inspire the freak-folk scene. Sainte-Marie has never stopped challenging convention, be it teaching children about Indigenous instruments and breastfeeding her son on Sesame Street in 1977 or fusing modern pop-rock with First Nations rhythms for 2015’s Power In the Blood. After seven decades of touring, Sainte-Marie retired from live performance in 2023.