TORONTO -- There’s a story behind Elaine Bomberry’s Juno award -- it was the gift of a lifetime from music legend Buffy Sainte-Marie.
In 2018, in her speech after winning a Juno for the Indigenous Music Album of the Year, Sainte-Marie dedicated the Juno to Bomberry.
“I think that maybe this Juno needs to live with Elaine Bomberry here in Vancouver,” Sainte-Marie said in the speech. “So, Elaine, this is for you.”
The reason? Bomberry helped create the Indigenous music category for the Junos 26 years ago, giving Indigenous musicians new recognition -- a goal she is still striving towards today.
Bomberry, who is Anishinaabe and Cayuga from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, told CTV News that when she heard Sainte-Marie had dedicated the award to her, she “just couldn’t believe it.
“I actually started crying,” she said. “But it was a real thrill, and I was never so honoured in my whole life."
She said it was “exciting” to help create a new section at the Junos for Indigenous artists, but added she was “not really aware of the impact these awards would have.”
Bomberry is an industry trailblazer who’s worked behind the scenes as a manager, producer and concert promoter.
"Elaine's name isn't very well known to the public,” Sainte-Marie told CTV News. “And I think she really deserves a lot of credit.
Bomberry didn’t just help to create space for Indigenous voices to be recognized at the Junos, Sainte-Marie pointed out.
“Before that time and since that time, [she] has been continuously in the know, and in a position that almost no one in Canada was, to put Indigenous musicians on the map,” she said.
Among the musicians whose lives Bomberry helped change is her husband, Blues man Murray Porter, who has also won a Juno. She was Porter’s manager for 14 years, but they’ve worked together since 1990.
According to APTN, she’s recently started writing songs, and her lyrics are featured in a piece on Porter’s latest album.
In 2020, she’s continuing to help performers during a pandemic that has hit them hard, co-hosting a virtual concert series with the Toronto Blues Society.
"It was supposed to be one show, one night, in Toronto in April,” Bomberry explained. “But then COVID hit, and they approached it to their funders to do a virtual series.”
She’s hoping to propel more Indigenous musicians to have the same kind of staying power as Sainte-Marie’s 58 years in the business.
Sainte-Marie said she couldn’t have done it herself if she hadn’t been able to maintain “a shred of mental health, just by avoiding the bad stuff.”
But even during adversity, the beat goes on.
