For all that [Sainte-Marie] is college educated and the possessor of a degree in Oriental philosophy, her performances are rooted in a deep assimilation of folkways which have rarely enjoyed so persuasive a voice. Whether the matter itself is really aboriginal or mostly original, Sainte-Marie herself is an aboriginal original blessed with a rare command of the powers that communicate….

[The range of her subject is] the perennially recurrent he and she, life and death, joy and sorrow, love requited and love unrequited.

Irving Kolodin, "Music to My Ears," in Saturday Review (copyright © 1967 by Saturday Review; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission), Vol. L, No. 45, November 11, 1967, p. 73.