Buffy Sainte-Marie reflects on 'fortunate' music career

Up North6:52Buffy Sainte-Marie in Thunder Bay

Legendary singer song writer Buffy Saint Marie visited Thunder Bay for a luncheon celebrating 20 years of Thunder Bay's PARO Centre for Women's Enterprise.

A legend of the music industry wasthe keynote speaker today at an event in Thunder Bay.

Buffy Sainte-Marieaddressed the crowd attending the 20-year celebration of thePARO Centre for Women'sEnterprise.

Besides penning many hit songs, Sainte-Marie has won a Gemini award and an Academy Award, as well as the Governor General's Performing Arts Award.

She said she likes to recall both the highs and lows of a 50-year career. The 73-year-old said it's exciting to share her story with so many successful businesswomen.

This is quite an organization. I'm here to learn, so I'm not the one to tell you about PARO, she said.

But we need this idea to become the paradigm in womens business. It's wonderful.

Sainte-Marie said she prefers the creative side of the music industry, but understands well why mastering the business side is so important.

Learning from mistakes

As a young singer, her lack of knowledge about the music industry cost her the publishing royalties from one of her most famous songs,Sainte-Marie said.

I had given away the publishing rights of Universal Soldier for a dollar to a crook by accident, she recalled.

I didnt know what I was doing. I was green. I'd never met a lawyer or a businessman in my life. And I didn't know anything about business.

She said she was better prepared to fight for her royalties years later, when Elvis Presley recorded one her songs.

"When it came to the song Until it's Time For You to Go, I recorded it, Bobby Darin recorded it, Cher recorded it, Barbara Streisand recorded it. [About] 20 or 30 people had already recorded it when Elvis did, she said.

Somebody called me up that night and said, Elvis just recorded your song and we want some of that publishing money, honey. And I said, no.

That song is a real good example to pass on to the women here as to how you can learn a lesson the hard way. And not do the same thing again. Its made me enough money that I was able to remain in show business, which is very expensive.

Learning from mistakes is an important part of being a success at whatever you do, she added.

Sainte-Marie considers herself lucky to have stayed in the music industry for so long.

I never envisioned that I would be doing it as a career. Because I didnt think I was going to last. All of a sudden I had a career. By the time I was 23, I was rich and famous. I was giving money away, she said.

Im exactly the same way I was in terms of my mission my love of life and art and music and dance. So Im very much like a kindergarten kid on the arts side. But on the business side, I never could envision that I would have a long career that would take me so many wonderful places. Ive really been very, very fortunate.