I'm super busy with work today and away from the computer now until tomorrow morning, so I hope Slam_Bradley won't mind if I take the lead today and post my next pick in my Top 10 albums of 1964...


#9 - It's My Way! by Buffy Sainte-Marie




In 2023, Cree folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie was outed as a prize bullsh*tter, having claimed to have been of Indigenous Canadian heritage for over 60 years (actually, turns out she was born to English and Italian parents in Stoneham, Massachusetts). But back in the Sixties and Seventies, she was an important spokesperson for Native Americans and Canadians, while her songs often dealt with the issues facing those peoples or explored Indigenous mysticism. While it's obviously not cool for Sainte-Marie to have claimed Indigenous ancestry and spoken on those people's behalf, while collecting awards intended for them, it doesn't change the fact that she was a gifted singer-songwriter who brought the plight of Indigenous peoples to the attention of an awful lot of folks who otherwise wouldn't have thought about it.

Anyway, controversy aside, what about this album? Well, it's Sainte-Marie's debut and it's the one that is still most likely to be cited by critics and fans as her best and most influential. The songs run the gamut from anti-war protest and drug addiction songs through to religious material and, of course, songs about the plight of the Native Americans (there's even a song here sung in Cree).

I find It's My Way! to be a slightly uneven album overall, but when it's good it's very good. The self-penned "Universal Soldier" (which was later a hit for Donovan) and "Cod'ine" are the two stand-out tracks (I perform a rendition of "Cod'ine" myself on occasion). But even when some of the material is a bit mediocre, Saint-Marie's chilling, vibrato-laden voice gives all the songs a powerful and disturbing sheen.

Here's the song "Cod'ine" for your enjoyment…

Absolutely. Nobody had any idea what a Sith really was, other than some kind of Dark Side Force user, prior to --- well, the prequels, really. I mean, yeah...the TotJ series and the Star Wars Role-playing Game did some fleshing out, but there was always the vague idea that they didn't really count because they weren't the movies. A fair bit of what had been established about the Sith by Dark Horse and West End Games in the '90s was contradicted or ignored by George Lucas in the prequels anyway.

I don't think I've knowingly heard any music that he was involved in and, in fact, I had to Google him because the name didn't ring a bell for me. As I say, I do like the sound of a vibraphone, but only for so long. I'm guessing that would be the case for Hampton's output. A little Vibraphone goes a long way.

Well, technically, I asked for it.




I'm not a particularly big fan of Ol' Blue Eyes, I must say, but those two tracks are pretty decent renditions, though they also sound pretty much exactly as I'd expect them to given the two lead performers. Of the two tracks, I found "The Best is Yet to Come" superior to "Fly Me to the Moon", as it had a bit more bite to it and a bit more commitment in Sinatra's vocal. Nice musical arrangements by Quincy Jones on both tracks though, but then, I wouldn't expect anything less.

But to be honest, when it comes to '40s and '50s crooners, I much prefer Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett and Dean Martin over Sinatra.

Ah, OK...I must've misunderstood what Master Arca was saying (more bad writing on Veitch's part ).




You're correct about there being no mention of the Sith in the OT (although there is actually a deleted part of the "Imperial board meeting" scene on the Death Star from the original 1977 film in which General Tagge refers to Darth Vader as a "Sith Lord"). But the supplementary material you refer to that mentioned the Sith -- and Darth Vader as "Dark Lord of the Sith" -- includes the 1976 Star Wars novelisation, the old Marvel comics, the original trilogy radio dramatizations, the Topps bubble-gum cards, the Kenner toy merchandise, the Bantha Tracks fanclub magazine, and the original trilogy poster magazines, amongst others. So, it's not like the word "Sith" or Vader being the Dark Lord of the Sith was unknown in the 70s and 80s if you were any kind of SW fan worth their salt.

As for the Emperor being a Sith, I'm not sure about it never being established back in the OT era. You might be right, I suppose, but my friends and I definitely viewed the Emperor ws a Sith back in the early '80s. I mean, he was clearly a Dark Side Force user in RotJ, so maybe we just assumed he must also a Sith? But I do wonder if it was perhaps mentioned some place like the RotJ novelization of the Marvel comics? I dunno, maybe you're right.

Fun fact, the word "Ewok" isn't uttered in RotJ either.




Sure. So, he got it wrong there as well.

Hey shaxper, just wanted to say that I've been enjoying watching your recent Transformers-themed videos, even though I've not been at all interested in Transformers since I was 11 or 12. But I enjoy your passion for the subject, and you're a charismatic presenter too. Good stuff. Keep it up.

Not a terrible issue, by any means, but not a particularly great one either. It was definitely a step down from the first issue, I felt, though I agree that the front cover is very nice.




Yeah, the instances of Deus ex Machina are unfortunate. That just smacks of sub-standard, amateurish writing, in my opinion. In particular, having Master Arca appear to bail the three young Jedi out felt like a total cop-out to me. The writing was definitely the weak link in this issue.




I must confess that hadn't occurred to me, but you're right – it makes no sense at all.




I spotted the foreshadowing here when Master Arca told Ulic Qel-Droma to pray that he never falls to the Dark Side, but only because you let Ulic's ultimate destiny slip in an earlier post. I don't recall ever thinking it was a foregone conclusion that Ulic would become a Sith before. At most, I might have thought that Tom Veitch was subtly referencing a future plot development he had up his sleeve which might involve Ulic being tempted by the Dark Side, but not necessarily that he would fully succumb to it.

Perhaps your prior knowledge of what happens is colouring your opinion of Veitch's foreshadowing here?




I think I said in my comments on issue #1 that I've always liked how Chris Gossett's design for the Jedi's ships was quite unorthodox. It's a nice touch to have the star-cruisers in TotJ look unlike the ones we're used to seeing in the original trilogy. It reinforces the idea that we are in a different era of Star Wars than the one we're used to.




I thought it was interesting that, yet again in a Star Wars comic, we have an instance of ancient Jedi Knights wearing actual metal armour – something that we saw on a few occasions in the old Marvel series too.

While we're on the subject of Freedon Nadd and the Dark Side of the Force, Veitch has Master Arca tell Ulic that with the Sith there can be only one (shades of Highlander perhaps?). Of course, the prequels established the rule of two (a master and a pupil), but even for somebody who was writing Star Wars comics before the prequels had come out, that's an odd mistake for Veitch to make: there were two Sith in the original trilogy, after all – Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.


Overall, I thought this issue was just kinda OK-ish. I'm still enjoying Gossett's '90s indie comic leanings in the artwork. However, I did want to mention that in the scene where the three young Jedi storm the Beast-Rider nuptials, Veitch describes the marriage of Princess Galia to Oron Kira as a "barbaric ceremony", but Gossett's art makes it look like a rather pleasant gathering.

But artwork aside, the writing is what spoiled this issue for me. I said in my comments for issue #1 that I was never a terribly big fan of TotJ, but that I had enjoyed re-reading the first part of the story. This issue, however, sort of reminded me why I never took to the series.