- Odetta Sings · 1970
- At the Gate of Horn · 1957
- Odetta Sings Dylan · 1965
- Odetta Sings Dylan · 1965
- Songs of Freedom - This Land Is Your Land · 1999
- Odetta Sings Folk Songs · 1963
- It's a Mighty World · 1964
- Belafonte Returns to Carnegie Hall (Live) · 1960
- Best of the Vanguard Years · 1963
- At the Gate of Horn · 1957
- Odetta Sings Dylan · 1965
- Odetta Sings Folk Songs · 1963
- Odetta and the Blues · 1962
Essential Albums
- One of the more commercially successful albums of Odetta’s mostly commercially unsuccessful career, this 1963 collection of folk songs is softened slightly by the presence of Greenwich Village icon Bruce Langhorne on guitar and jazz bassist Victor Sproles. In contrast to most of her previous outings, the album’s opener “900 Miles,” for example, is almost danceable, as is her bright signature take on “This Little Light of Mine”—both given levity by the bigger backing band and accompanying groove. Odetta’s usual collection of traditional tunes included a couple of anomalies: a buttoned-up version of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” (she would record an entire Dylan tribute album a couple years later) and a jazzy take on the traditional song “This Little Light of Mine,” which was already well on its way to becoming a protest anthem. The latter would become one of her signatures, a timeless, exuberant expression of liberation. It is now associated with children’s music as well as social justice movements, but another entry on the album actually addresses children specifically: “Why Oh Why,” a humorous ode to kids who won’t go to bed. The minimal acoustic ensemble sounds like an orchestra by comparison to Odetta’s personal precedent; unsurprisingly, it comes nowhere near to overpowering her singular voice. Instead, it just adds a barely perceptible gentleness to her previously stark recording style. There is a barely perceptible level of pop polish to this record, but it doesn’t come at the expense of deep feeling: “I Never Will Marry,” “Shenandoah,” and “All My Trials,” another popular protest folk song, show Odetta at her potent best. Sings Folk Songs has real range, flaunting Odetta’s skill across blues, work songs, traditional songs, and hymns of different tempi and feel—a recorded blow to anyone who might dare write her off as one-dimensional.
- Released in 1956, Odetta’s debut album heralded both the folk boom of the ‘60s and the early stirrings of the civil rights movement. Beyond its place in history, this album remains a work of uncommon emotional and artistic power. Odetta’s astoundingly deep voice and dramatic phrasing owes as much to the operatic style of Paul Robeson as it does to the raw blues of Leadbelly. Her renditions of “Deep Blue Sea” and “’Buked and Scorned” are at once stately and shiver inducing. Odetta puts aside her theatrical training to deliver tunes like “Another Man Done Gone” and “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” with a raw, wailing fervor. Whether she’s essaying a Western folk ballad like “Santy Anno” or catching the lilt of Caribbean music in “Shame and Scandal,” she treats her material with respect and insight. Most of all, it’s the sound of her singing that’s inescapably moving, especially when she interprets African-American spirituals like “Glory, Glory” and “Oh Freedom.” Sings Ballads and Blues went on to influence a generation of folk artists and to inspire those who fought for equality in the South and beyond. The album’s prophetic message still resonates a half-century on.
- 1970
Artist Playlists
- Her biggest fan was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Need we say more?
Live Albums
- 2011
Compilations
About 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 theater. 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.
- HOMETOWN
- Birmingham, AL, United States
- BORN
- December 31, 1930
- GENRE
- Singer/Songwriter