Buffy Sainte-Marie, Many A Mile - Album review

Download: Fixin’ to Die; Until It’s Time For You to Go; Lazarus; Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies

Long unavailable, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s second album finds her exploring a variety of approaches, while developing her songwriting skills through the country anthem “The Piney Wood Hills” and oft-covered love song “Until It’s Time For You to Go”.

Her treatment of the latter is unexpectedly understated: for once, she reins in the tremulous, warbling delivery that set her apart from pure-toned folkies like Joan Baez, and showcased on a bravura version of Bukka White’s “Fixin’ to Die”.

Equally at home on traditional material like “Must I Go Bound” and “On The Banks of Red Roses”, as on original songs like her bluesy “Broke-Down Girl” (“mommy’s little girl gone bad”), her Native American roots are most strikingly expressed on two pieces featuring her mouthbow accompaniment, the rustic party-piece “Groundhog” and ballad “Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies”.