Search - Buffy Sainte-Marie :: Moonshot

Another view of the Nashville Skyline

Nicholas Bates | Syndey, NSW, Australia | 02/09/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Moonshot doesn't have too much competition as the best country rock album of the seventies (and hey, maybe the eighties and nineties too) by a Native North American Woman! Just what is so good about this record? For a start, its the songs - infectious melodies that get in your head and stay there forever. The production is wall of sound meets country rock - short and sharp. Buffy's voice is just right for this full on approach - deep, powerful and that fabulous, evocative vibrato. And as with all of her best albums, the passionate nature of Sainte Marie is never far from the surface, managing to turn even the seemingly benign, "He's an Indian Cowboy in the Rodeo" into a political anthem. I guess how I really know Moonshot is such a great record is that I've consistently played it over the years and never grown tired of it. Compared to "I used to wanna be a ballerina" which I think was its follow up, Moonshot is just a much more consistent and inspired record - an almost forgotten masterpieces which, if it was by Dylan or another male contemporary would be considered 'classic' etc by now and raved about. Moonshot was recorded in Nashville and was co-produced (I think) by Sainte Marie and the hotshot producer of the day, Norman Putnam. Just great to know this record is available on CD and hope that fans of the current generation of power girl popsters might explore this and other gems from a previous but still glorious era!"

Buffy's Best

Larry D | Los Angeles, CA United States | 07/09/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In my opinion, Buffy's finest album, bar none. Her famous vibrato seems markedly less prominent than usual, and her vocals are among the most appealing of her recording career. Gone the twee, self-conciously "folky" singing of some of her other records. She full-on belts on rockers like "Not the Lovin' Kind" and "Native North American Child", the rockabilly "My Baby Left Me", the anthemic "Mister Can't You See". She turns sex kitten, Kate Bush high notes and breathless delivery on "You Know How to Turn on Those Lights" ("doncha, baby?"). Best of all is the haunting title tune, sung in a voice filled with wonder by a space-age Native North American child, wishing "bon voyage" to those venturing into the cosmos, confiding that she knows "a boy from a tribe so primitive/he can call me up without no telephone". I'm not a Buffy fan by and large; but this is one of my all-time favorite albums."

Thought provoking, Buffy Sainte Marie

Larry D | 06/13/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the mid-seventies, this album, especially the title song, made such an impression on me, that for twenty years I've looked for it in Tower, Goodies, and the rest with no luck. "Off into outerspace you go my friend" is a line from the title song that has never left me"