Best Of Buffy Sainte-Marie Vol. 2

Buffy Sainte-Marie's best-known and best songs were used on Vanguard's Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie. This 24-song set features mostly original material, along with some traditional tunes and the odd cover, like Joni Mitchell's "Song to a Seagull." While not all of the songs are good, Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie, Vol. 2 does illustrate the considerable range of her early recordings: from traditional folk accompanied only by mouth bow to country & western to a truly odd version of "Lyke Wake Dirge," a psychedelic rock cover of Richie Havens' "Adam," a French pop remake of "Until It's Time for You to Go," and more. There was a lot more to Sainte-Marie than the early acoustic folk recordings, although those are what she's most famous for (and justly so). Like several of Vanguard's anthologies, however, this is sequenced poorly, jumping all over the place chronologically. It makes for a far more uneven experience than would be the case if the sides were arranged more or less in the order in which they were recorded. ~ Richie Unterberger