Odetta

Called the “queen of American folk music” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Odetta crafted emotionally wrenching roots music that served as a spiritual compass for the civil rights movement. Born Odetta Holmes in Alabama in 1930, the singer spent most of her youth in L.A., where she studied music and theatre. Though Odetta possessed a voice powerful enough for opera, she gravitated toward folk ballads, African-American spirituals and country blues. Beginning with her 1956 debut, Sings Ballads and Blues, she released a clutch of folk-revival classics that influenced activists and artists alike, including Rosa Parks, Bob Dylan and the poet Maya Angelou. Her performance of the gospel traditional “I’m on My Way” at 1963’s March on Washington cemented her legacy as a crucial voice of Black liberation. After recording very little throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Odetta made a grand return with 1999’s Blues Everywhere I Go, an album featuring some of her gutsiest blues. Despite suffering from heart disease and being confined to a wheelchair, the folk icon continued performing right up to her death in December 2008, mere weeks before she was to appear at President Barack Obama’s inauguration.