In 1963, Buffy Sainte-Marie had the courage to speak out against an undeclared war in which the United States had conscripted 16,000 troops to serve as “advisors,” and consequently, was banned from singing “The Universal Soldier” on US radio and TV until 1965. It is curious to see which countries released Sainte-Marie’s 1965 single — Denmark, the UK, Italy, Spain, Austria — versus those that did not (e.g., the US).
45 picture sleeve
This initial media blackout, quixotically enough, worked in the artist’s favor when Buffy Sainte-Marie was given a chance to reintroduce herself to an American television audience that had, essentially, never laid eyes on the Indigenous Canadian-American singer-songwriter, who hails from the Piapot Cree Nation.
Buffy Sainte-Marie on To Tell The Truth
January 24, 1966
The following year, Buffy Sainte-Marie would release a new and startlingly original album —
Billboard
For the CD reissue in the UK and Europe, Vanguard Records partnered with the venerable Ace Records UK, who contemplated aloud in 2004 about the album’s place within the artist’s creative continuum:
1967’s Fire & Fleet & Candlelight captures Native American songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie gradually emerging from the earlier 60s folk scene, but still recognisable as a child of that musical movement with her quavering voice, guitar and mouth bow. Traditional fare as “Lord Randall,” “Reynardine” and the “Lyke Wake Dirge” (using Benjamin Britten‘s music) with Joni Mitchell songs “The Circle Game” and “Song To A Seagull,” the old-timey Bascom Lamar Lunsford song “Doggett’s Gap” and eight of Sainte-Marie’s own compositions including “The Seeds Of Brotherhood” and the wonderfully titled “97 Men In This Here Town Would Give A Half A Grand In Silver Just To Follow Me Down.”
“accompanying herself on guitar and mouth-bow”
Orchestra arranged & conducted by Peter Schickele
That last song mentioned — as the LP label above reveals — is actually a medley of two discrete compositions: “97 Men In This Here Town Would Give A Half A Grand In Silver Just To Follow Me Down” and “Don’t Call Me Honey“:
“97 Men Don’t Call Me Honey“
Buffy Sainte-Marie (1967)
Buffy Sainte-Marie – Vocals & Guitar
Bruce Langhorne – Guitar
Monte Dunn – Mandolin
Bob Siggins – Banjo
Russ Savakus – Bass
Al Rogers – Drums
Fire & Fleet & Candlelight hovered just below Cash Box‘s Top 100 Album chart in July and August of 1967, reaching as high as the 103 position (July 22, 1967), although, this same album would penetrate the lower reaches of Record World‘s 100 Top LPs chart, peaking at 93 during the week of August 12, 1967, versus Billboard‘s chart peak of 126 on August 5, 1967.
*
Buffy Sainte-Marie at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival
Cash Box
“long been among the most eloquent spokesmen for full equality of the American Indian“
*
Around this period of time, Buffy Sainte-Marie would take the stage — along with The Blues Project, The Mothers of Invention, The Youngbloods, The New Lost City Ramblers, and Bill Evans — as part of a set of “coffeehouse” performances connected to the 20th National Student Congress held at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus, where some 1500 delegates from 400 colleges were represented, as noted in Billboard‘s July 29, 1967 issue.
20th National Student Congress
Hartford Courant
Aug. 9, 1967
News Flash:
National Student Association –
“Subsidized for years by the Central Intelligence Agency“
*
Cash Box, who recognized Sainte-Marie from the outset as an artist of “special merit” (April 4, 1964), hailed the Canadian singer-songwriter as a “major figure in the American folk scene” in their review of October 1967’s performance at New York’s Philharmonic Hall, the site of a triumphant “major concert debut” only seven months earlier.
A year later, Cash Box would praise Buffy Saint-Marie as “one of the artists who emerged, career intact, from the death of the folk boom” in its rave review of November 1968’s performance at Carnegie Hall — a stage that had been denied to Jimi Hendrix, who instead had to settle for Philharmonic Hall (Sainte-Marie had already appeared at Carnegie Hall three years earlier as part of the first New York Folk Festival in June 1965).
Unconventional tunings utilized from the outset –
Advertisement for Ovation Guitars
(1968)
Image courtesy of Vintage Guitar & Bass
*
*
Sidebar Discussion:
“Folk Singer” vs. “Singing Poet“?
Billboard‘s Aaron Sternfield in his review of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s October 27, 1967 performance at Philharmonic Hall makes the following assertion:
Miss Sainte-Marie is generally described as a folk singer, but this designation is not wholly correct. While she does do some traditional material and quite a bit from Leonard Cohen’s contemporary folk bag, she is essentially a poet who sings. With the exception of a plea for the American Indian and a bitter protest against war, she deals with personal themes rather than social conditions.
*
*
1968’s professional highlights for the folk-singing poet would include a special performance in the Netherlands, as noted in the “Holland Happenings” column of Record World‘s March 30, 1968 edition:
Buffy Sainte-Marie was one of the most important stars of the Grand Gala du Disque 1968. Her records are selling very well here.
Five weeks later, Sainte-Marie would also appear in Rome at the First International Pop Festival (sharing the bill with Donovan) on May 5th. The Rome Festival, per European tradition, employed a panel of judges, who were tasked with awarding eight “Golden Laurels” to the best artists (fifty-two paid performers and each allotted one hour of stage time, as reported in Rolling Stone‘s February 10, 1968 issue).
Grand Gala du Disque
(1968)
Photo credit: .Jack de Nijs for Anefo
*
That same year, Buffy Sainte-Marie teamed up with a number of Music City’s top musicians to produce I’m Gonna Be A Country Girl Again, a full-length musical statement that was recorded in Nashville and “dedicated to Chet Atkins” — for reasons made clear in Record World‘s October 19, 1968 edition:
Buffy Sainte-Marie composed practically every song on her recent album, I’m Gonna Be a Country Girl Again. .Earlier repertoire had often boasted melody and lyric lines typically country, for instance the well known “Piney Wood Hills.” .The inimitable Chet Atkins, long an admirer of Buffy’s, acted as friend and special advisor on the recording. .It was through Atkins and another country notable, Grady Martin, that the session musicians such as Floyd Cramer and Sonny Osborne were obtained.
Musician Credits
Vocals, Guitar & Mouth-Bow – Buffy Sainte-Marie
Vocal Support – The Jordanaires
Banjo – Sonny Osborne
Bass – Jerry Shook & Wayne Moss
Double Bass – Junior Huskey
Drums – Buddy Harman & Bill Ackerman
Electric Guitar – Grady Martin
Rhythm Guitar – Ray Edenton & Velma Smith
Steel Guitar – Harald (‘Hal‘) Rugg & Lloyd Green
Piano – Floyd Cramer
Fiddle – Grover Lavender
Cash Box would pick the LP’s title track as one of its “Best Bets” for the week of September 28, 1968 and offer this cautiously optimistic assessment of the song’s commercial prospects:
Tune has been receiving strong play out of the lark’s current album (it’s the little song) and could see heavy action in its new form.
“I’m Gonna Be A Country Girl Again“
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Opening paragraph of Barry Gifford‘s review for the June 20, 1968 issue of Rolling Stone:
Buffy Ste. Marie has always been a country girl – she hasn’t had to adjust her voice any to fit the Nashville inflection. She sounds just as good with steel guitar backing as she does all alone. Buffy sounds honest — that final note on “A Soulful Shade of Blue” is as unpretentious as the dedication of the album to Chet Atkins. Somehow it doesn’t seem to matter where she records. If she were backed by Gerry and the Pacemakers and produced by Frank Zappa it would still be just-plain Buffy Ste. Marie that came through.
Buffy Sainte-Marie & Chet Atkins
Billboard‘s Jan. 27, 1968 issue
Following the ecstatic reception at Carnegie Hall, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s artistic trajectory would continue to build in 1969. Sainte-Marie’s televised appearance on ABC’s popular and groundbreaking The Johnny Cash Show — taped on July 5th — included this playful collaboration on “Custer,” a song that was originally part of 1964’s Bitter Tears, Cash’s daring, full-length statement about the plight of the Native American:
“Custer“
Buffy Sainte-Marie & Johnny Cash (1969)
Later that year, Buffy Sainte-Marie received an unexpected cash reward from ASCAP (who were still awash in record profits, as reported by ASCAP’s Juanita Jones the previous year), along with a select group of songwriting peers that included fellow folkies Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Bobbie Gentry, Arlo Guthrie, Carolyn Hester, Phil Ochs, and Tom Paxton, as well as artists in country (Elton Britt, Marian Francis, Gordon Galbraith, Vaughn Horton, Ricci Mareno, Jerry D. Smith, Billy Edd Wheeler & Sheb Wooley), jazz (Kenny Burrell, Ornette Coleman, Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie, Mike Mainieri, Red Norvo, Horace Silver & Billy Taylor), and rock (The Doors, The Band, Paul Butterfield, Janis Joplin, The Youngbloods, Blue Cheer & The Grateful Dead).
Cash Box
“Some 1,214 writer-members in the ‘popular’ field will receive $326,710,” reported Cash Box, which – when divided equally – comes out to $269 [a sum roughly equivalent to $2,234 in 2023 dollars, notes Mrs. Zero to 180]. The remaining $338,650, Cash Box explains, “will be distributed to 583 writer-members in the standard field including composers and authors of symphonic, operatic and concert works.” ASCAP’s intent, in part, was to provide “financial encouragement” to newer songwriters “on the contemporary scene.”
Shortly before this substantial cash disbursement, however, Buffy Sainte-Marie had headlined a powerful and “very moving set” at New York’s Central Park, as Record World reported in its August 2, 1969 issue and, after being called back for numerous encores, stunned the “large crowd of Buffy-addicts” with the announcement that her current album, Illuminations — a pioneering quadrophonic exploration of folk and electronic music via a Buchla Box — would be her last.
Jerry Gilbert‘s review of Illuminations for the November 6, 1971 edition of UK publication, Sounds:
IT MAY be well over two years since this album was first issued in the States, but fortunately it is one of those timeless masterpieces which doesn’t date at all. With Peter Schikele doing the arrangements and Michael Czajkowski composing an electronic score, this is something of a concept album, and yet before you get completely carried away with the idea of Buffy being distorted in a sea of free flowing synthesised sound, let me point out that it contains some of her best ever structured compositions. As an experiment Illuminations is a huge success for Buffy’s guitar and voice are electronically synthesised to produce the most chilling effects and this is no better illustrated than on “Poppies“. It’s not an album for the faint-hearted but even when you divorce such songs as “Suffer The Little Children“, “The Vampire“, “The Angel“, the much lauded “Guess Who I Saw In Paris“, and Richie Havens’ “Adam” from the context in which they are found you instantly realise their naked brilliance.
Fortunately for humanity, Sainte-Marie’s resolve would last just two years until the release of 1971’s She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina (held for the camera below by Vanguard Records’ promotion director, Victor Perrotti).
In Cleveland to Headline a Benefit Concert for American Indians
Cash Box
(L to R) David Spiro (WNCR music director); Victor Perrotti (Vanguard Records); Buffy;
Bill Bass (WNCR program director); Ron & Kay Thompson (The Ron & Kay Show)
*
Illuminations‘ bold artistic statement would later acquire a certain “cult status,” notes Pitchfork, although its failure to perform well in the marketplace at the time of release resulted in significant pressure from Vanguard for Sainte-Marie to craft something more commercially viable, observed the CBC in 2016. Buffy Sainte-Marie would tell The Toronto Star in 2022 that a deejay belatedly confessed years later that “he had letters on White House stationery commending him for having suppressed my music” — only can only wonder thus in retrospect to what degree did the invisible hand of J. Edgar Hoover help inform Illuminations‘ poor sales performance.
Review of She Used To Be A Ballerina‘s title track from the October 23, 1971 issue of Sounds:
From her album of the same title comes Buffy’s most famous number and certainly one of her very rare really laid down funky tracks. Her extraordinary voice combines very effectively with that held-in, rabbit tail thumping rhythm section. And the whole track, under the very able direction of Jack Nitzsche, has an impetus and directness of its own. It will prove to be a chart success with absolutely no bother at all.
“She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina“
Buffy Sainte-Marie (1971)
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s (uncredited) musical accompanists on this album include guitarists Jesse Ed Davis, Ry Cooder, and Neil Young, vocalist Merry Clayton, and Young’s own backing band, Crazy Horse.
Gary von Tersch‘s album review in Rolling Stone‘s June 10, 1971 issue —
For the past six years, ever since the mid-Sixties Folk boom, Buffy Sainte-Marie has come out with an album a year, mostly fine and mostly overlooked. This album parallels her previous efforts — it’s full of some fine original songs, a few vibratingly succinct re-workings of material that lends itself to her approach (Leonard Cohen’s “The Bells” and Neil Young’s “Helpless”) as well as a couple of tunes from foreign languages (“The Surfer” and “The Song Of The French Partisan”). But unlike her earlier totally folk-based releases, she has producing assistance from the old surfing records King Jack Nitzsche as well as aid musically from the likes of Crazy Horse, Neil Young, Ry Cooder, Jesse Davis and Merry Clayton.
Buffy still dominates the music, however, with one of the most arresting and haunting voices on disc, weaving her way through such gems as her minor classics “Now You’ve Been Gone For A Long Time” and the understated “Soldier Blue.” Not to overlook her piano-laced anger on “Moratorium,” the tune that she sang at Moratorium demonstrations throughout the United States last year: .“Corp’ral Thomas McCann is a three year Marine/Someone told him he’d better join up/It would make him a man./He came home and to the park he went/And he sat down on a bench/And a dungaree girl told him he’d been a man all along/And he looked at the sign that she carried in her hand./It said ‘F— the war and bring our brothers home’/And Corp’ral McCann he looks into her eyes/And I believe that he’s begun to understand.”
The use of Clayton, Cooder, Davis and company occurs on the title tune, “Sweet September Morning” and, most effectively, on Buffy’s delicate, wavering revamping of “Helpless,” that has even more of a [forlorn], ghostly quality than the original. Similarly, Buffy’s interpretation of Cohen’s “The Bells” and Carole King’s “Smack Water Jack” are rewarding — acerbic, abandoned and terse.
The folk days are gone and Buffy in a way is a ghost from its halcyon — but as poetess Denise Levertov has matured with the Amerika she is living in (evidenced in her recent New Directions collection Relearning The Alphabet) so has Miss Sainte-Marie adjusted, as this album reflects.
*
*
*
A dozen years or so later, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s songwriting profile would receive renewed acclaim when “Up Where We Belong” (co-written, interestingly enough, with Jack Nitzsche) won an Oscar for Best Original Song in connection with 1982’s An Officer And A Gentleman.
ASCAP Ad
Cash Box
May 7, 1983
First Indigenous person to win an Oscar
ASCAP Ad
Cash Box
June 2, 1984
Most Performed ASCAP Song of the Year
Buffy Sainte-Marie & Jack Nitzsche
Did the two artists first meet while working on the soundtrack to Performance?
*
*
*
F U N * F A C T S
Did You Know?
- Buffy Sainte-Marie — despite being blacklisted by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI — was named a member of President Lyndon Johnson’s advisory board on poverty, as reported in the July 8, 1967 edition of Record World.
*
- That same year Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Universal Soldier” and ten other Songs From The Hearts Of Women would be selected for inclusion on a special LP entitled, Save The Children – the sole offering from obscure record label, Women Strike For Peace.
Women Strike For Peace –
Policy Statement
“We represent a resolute strand of women in the United States against the unprecedented threat to life from nuclear holocaust. We are women of all races, creeds, and political persuasions who are dedicated to the achievement of general and complete disarmament under effective international control. We demand of governments that nuclear weapons tests be banned forever, that the arms race end, and that the world abolish all weapons of destruction under United Nations safeguards. We cherish the right and accept the responsibility of the individual in a democratic society to act to influence the course of government. We urge that the United Nations be strengthened by universal membership. We urge our government to anticipate world tensions and conflicts through constructive non-military actions and through the United Nations. We uphold the right of all people to decide their own political and economic future free of foreign military intervention. Therefore we oppose the draft of young men for destruction and killing in Vietnam and anywhere else in the world to further United States policy of military intervention. We also oppose universal conscription because we do not want a conscripted society, but a free society dedicated to the pursuit of human rights. We join with women throughout the world to challenge the right of any group of nations to hold the power of life and death over the world.”
*
- Buffy Sainte-Marie contributed one song (“Immigrante“) to the The Broadside Singers‘ 1964 debut album, as did each of the group’s esteemed members: Tom Paxton, David Cohen, Mark Spoelstra, Bob Dylan, Matt McGinn, Peter LaFarge, Gil Turner, Phil Ochs, Patrick Sky, Malvina Reynolds, Len Chandler, Ernie Marrs, Eric Andersen, and The Freedom Singers. This self-titled debut LP would also be (is anyone surprised?) the group’s sole offering.
Dual release on Folkways & Broadside Records
*
- In between 1969’s Illuminations and 1971’s I Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina is a noteworthy A-side, whose use as the theme song of “Soldier Blue” — a film from 1970 that graphically depicts the massacre of a Cheyenne village by Colorado State Militia — would account for its virtual absence from US airwaves due to political pressure, as noted by the artist in a 2009 interview with The Guardian:
“No-one knows ‘Soldier Blue’ in North America. I can guarantee you won’t find three people in the US who know it. It was taken out of the theatres after a few days.”
Note: “Soldier Blue” was a UK Top Ten hit in Sept. 1971.
45 picture sleeve
*
- One other Buffy Sainte-Marie recording would feature prominently in a film from 1970, curiously enough, as Buffy’s original 1967 single mix of Joni Mitchell‘s “The Circle Game” was used to both open and close The Strawberry Statement, an adaptation of James Simon Kunen‘s diaries that chronicled the 1968 Columbia University student strike, with a script written by playwright Israel Horovitz. According to The American Film Institute, after a one-week run in Athens, The Strawberry Statement was banned in Greece by the “army-backed regime,” which took exception to the film’s anti-government sensibility, as reported November 27, 1970 by The Los Angeles Times [despite the ban, the film’s soundtrack album, perversely, enjoyed distribution in Greece that same year, per Discogs]. “The Circle Game” – reissued in 1970 – would go all the way to #1 in Japan, where Buffy Sainte-Marie made a UNICEF benefit appearance at Expo ’70 in Osaka, as reported in Cash Box‘s November 7, 1970 issue.
*
2-LP soundtrack
*
- 1970 would also see the release of a British documentary film in which a Buffy Sainte-Marie recording would feature prominently, per Cash Box‘s August 22, 1970 edition:
Now That the Buffalo’s Gone, depiction of the plight of the American Indian, is narrated by Marlon Brando, with music by Buffy Sainte-Marie and production by Thames Television. The film, suitable for use as a single unit or in three parts, received strongly favorable reviews during its premiere screening earlier this year in England.
Still from Now That The Buffalo’s Gone
(image courtesy of Thames Television)
*
- Buffy Sainte-Marie’s perfect pop arrangement of “Mister Can’t You See” (with its ‘proto-disco’ strings — streaming audio link) managed to hit the Top 40, peaking at #29 on Record World‘s Singles Charts on May 13, 1972, versus Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart, where the track had peaked the week before at #38 on May 6, 1972, versus #40 on Cash Box‘s Top 100 chart during this same two-week period. Two years later, producer Norbert Putnam would tell Rolling Stone‘s Art Harris, that “Mister Can’t You See” should have performed better commercially — “‘It made it solely on phone requests and because the [radio] jocks liked it,’ he says, and not because of any promo push from Vanguard.”
Record World rightfully gushed in its March 4, 1972 review:
“Buffy should break into the singles game with this Mickey Newbury–Townes Van Zandt copyright. She sings up a storm on this strong side produced with Norbert Putnam.”
45 picture sleeve
“Mister Can’t You See” was paired with the title track [streaming audio] for 1972’s Moonshot album — recorded at Nashville’s Quadrafonic Sound Studios.
Buffy Sainte-Marie & Chet Atkins
Record World
Buffy Sainte-Marie Cuts R&B LP in Nashville
By Chuck Neese
NASHVILLE – “Wow, what is it about this town — I’ve written song after song after song. I haven’t even counted the songs, they just come out of nowhere.”
So said Vanguard artist Buffy Sainte-Marie at lunch last week. Buffy and husband [Dewain Bugbee] have temporarily moved to a Music City apartment for the duration of her 11th album session, an R&B package.
“I’m cutting at [Quadrafonic] Studios; it’s kind of a co -production thing between me and Norbert Putman. We’re using the Area Code 615 group for back-up musicians. I wouldn’t cut with anybody else. You can’t beat those guys. We’ll use David Briggs, Mac Gayden, Wayne Moss, Kenny Buttrey and some of the others.”
Farm in Hawaii
Buffy’s time is split between her 45-acre farm in Hawaii and concert dates on the mainland. “My favorite places are Hawaii, Nashville and maybe London,” she told Record World.
Miss Sainte-Marie, aside from her vocal performances, is a prolific writer who runs her own publishing company, Caleb Music (ASCAP), with home offices in L.A. One of Buffy’s best copyrights is the self-penned “Until It’s Time for You to Go,” which she has over 70 album cuts without the aid of a hit single.
*
- Eliot Tiegel‘s news item from his “U.S. News” column in the August 25, 1973 issue of UK’s Record Mirror —
Buffy St. Marie and the Memphis Horns will be heard on the next LP by the New Riders of the Purple Sage [i.e., vocal and/or horn support on “You Should Have Seen Me Runnin‘” and “Cement, Clay And Glass” from 1973’s The Adventures Of Panama Red].
Buffy:
B-Side Backing Vocalist
45 picture sleeve
*
- TRIVIA = The title track to Buffy Sainte-Marie’s debut album – “It’s My Way” – was only ever issued on a 45 in Denmark, where it served as the B-side for “You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond” (another singular appearance on seven-inch).
1966
*
- Ten years ago, Buffy Sainte-Marie joined forces with The Sadies to update an “old hippy campfire song” with new lyrics (by Sainte-Marie, who also plays mouth bow) and music (by the band) on “We Are Circling,” closing track of 2013 Sadies album, Internal Sounds.
*
*
Final Word
Excerpt
Rolling Stone
June 20, 1974
Foreign audiences “know my work much better than American audiences,” [Saint-Marie] says. “‘Soldier Blue’ was the biggest thing that happened in Europe. There were golden albums. It was on the charts for an entire summer. Number one, two, three and four in Scandinavia.” Her Greatest Hits album, she says, was “huge in Japan.”
Overseas, Buffy felt audiences accepted a wider range of her work, not just the protest songs that non-New York and California audiences flock to hear in the U.S. “If there’s one thing people were concerned with overseas, it was sniffing out joy, and that’s what I’m interested in,” Buffy says. “It’s about time we started sharing smiles as well as pain.”
*
*
LINK to Folk
LINK to Music in Wartime
LINK to Native +/- Indigenous American Sounds
*
*
A Zero to 180 Master Class
Nether Regions of Music Theory:
The Role of Dominant 12ths
In his review of Hunter Davies‘ authorized biography of The Beatles for the October 26, 1968 issue of Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner makes the following observation:
“Their musical ability and acumen was apparent long before anyone discovered that Paul McCartney frequently used dominant 12ths after I-IV-V progression in a minor key”
Those of you who have not been subjected to rigorous musical training, might be saying, “yeah, big deal” My point? Google the phrase “dominant 12ths” — go ahead, I’ll wait.
[be sure to use the quotation marks]
Did you notice that the term “dominant 12ths” is unique to Rolling Stone and nowhere else on the web?
Keep in mind, there is such a thing as a dominant 7th, and as one website helpfully explains, dominant 7th chords (i.e., a major triad plus an added minor 7th note) “add tension and can create an effect that regular major and minor chords can’t duplicate.”
Those of you who have a sufficient grasp of the term “dominant 12ths” are invited to explain this esoteric bit of music theory to the rest of us.
*
*
News!
Progress!
Improvements!
2022’s fabulous website redesign (by Jim Faris of JinxUOMe) was the perfect opportunity — after ten years on pop music history’s front lines — to systematically review each of the 775 posts from top to bottom and employ a series of quality control measures to help ensure data integrity and quality of presentation, while at the same time, reformat the website’s content in a more vertical alignment for optimal display on a variety of screen sizes, including smart phones and portable devices.
Helping to necessitate this systematic scrutiny of Zero to 180’s back catalog was the implementation of a new subject taxonomy, as well as the retrospective (and critical) need for both meta-tags to improve search engine optimization rankings and “featured images” that serve as a visual ‘ID tag’ for each post.
With this “back-end” development work finally completed in early 2023, focus then shifted squarely to the home page, where each navigational sub-page (including newest member, Record Labels) has been similarly scanned from A-Z against the back catalog for accuracy as well as completeness:
*
One newly-activated feature on the home page = the Donate button.
*
Look for the Donate button on the home page.
*
Even with a coterie of correspondents both domestically and abroad, Zero to 180’s meticulous and offbeat collection of original research is primarily the work of one person. Your financial contribution can help insure the long-term viability of Zero to 180 and its mission to celebrate the artistic achievements of noteworthy figures in popular music who have not yet received their full and proper recognition.
One Response
Wow! Thanks for putting so much time and effort into this! I can’t believe how many sources you dug up. I really enjoyed reading all of these Buffy quotes I had never seen before!