Odetta - Biography
BY J Poet
Odetta’s booming, soulful voice and powerful guitar playing made her one of the most influential performers of the 60s folk revival. Her interest in African American folk music, including the pre-blues songs of the South, blues, ragtime, spirituals and jazz led her to start collecting and documenting songs, making her an impressive ameateur folklorist. She was one of the first performers to embrace the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, helping to inspire several generations of activists and singers including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Joan Armatrading and Tracy Chapman.
Martin Luther King, Jr. called her The Queen of American folk music and Maya Angelou once said: “If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time.” Odetta was nominated for five Grammys, the first for her powerful Odetta Sings Folk Songs (1964 Vanguard) and won a Grammy for her contribution to We Shall Overcome: The March on Washington (1964, Folkways) recoded live on August 28, 1963. President Clinton acknowledged Odetta’s contribution to America’s cultural heritage with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Medal of the Arts in 1999.
Odetta Holmes was born in Alabama. Her father died when she young and her mother remarried and moved the family to Los Angeles. She took voice and piano lessons from the age of six and was already developing her powerful voice in high school. Odetta had just taken a degree in classical music and musical comedy at Los Angeles City College when she was introduced to folk music, a life-changing discovery. She joined the national touring company of Finian’s Rainbow in 1949 and when the show stopped in San Francisco she met some of the city’s young folk singers and settled down in the Bay Area. A year- long engagement at the small Tin Angel club, backed by banjo player/ singer/guitarist Larry Mohr led to a recording deal with the New Fantasy label. Her first album was released in as The Tin Angel Presents Odetta & Larry, Vol 1. (1954 Fantasy), but was soon repackaged as Odetta at the Tin Angel (1955 Fantasy, 1993 Fantasy CD). A gig at the Blue Angel in New York City brought her to the attention of Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte, who invited her to take part in his recording Belafonte Returns to Carnegie Hall (1960, RCA). She moved to Tradition, the folk label run by Paddy Clancy and Diane Hamilton and cut the live Odetta at The Gate of Horn (1957 Tradition) and Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues (1956 Tradition, 1996 Rykodisc/Tradition), the album that Dylan said made him trade in his electric guitar for a Gibson flattop.
By the time she moved to Vanguard, the folk powerhouse that was soon to explode with the signing of Joan Baez, Odetta was a national figure with well-reviewed performances at the Newport Folk Festival and several Carnegie Hall concerts. On My Eyes Have Seen (1959 Vanguard) folk purists carped because she was backed by a chorus on some cuts, but Odetta was always more than a folk singer. Odetta and The Blues (1962 Riverside, 1993 Fantasy) showed her powerful chops in service of classic tunes associated with Bessie Smith and Ma Rainy, backed by a solid jazz combo led by Buck Clayton. After successful appearances with Belefonte, RCA napped her up. Odetta Sings Folk Songs (1963 RCA) was one of the year’s top sellers, and she followed it with It’s a Mighty World (1964 RCA) and Odetta Sings Dylan (1965 RCA) possibly the first all Dylan cover album, backed by frequent Dylan sideman guitarist Bruce Langhorne. Odetta (1967 Verve Folkways) was another interesting side trip; with jazzy folk meets pop arrangements of traditional songs and one odd Beatles cover “Strawberry Field Forever.”
Odetta kept performing, but when folk music fell out of favor in the early 70s, she stopped recording. In 1998, she reemerged as a jazz and blues singer, again getting rave reviews for her work, and with a voice even deeper and more soulful than that of her youth. To Ella (1998 Silver Wolf) is an amazing live performance that blends many well known folk songs together into a suite that tells the story of the nation in song. Blues Everywhere I Go (1999 MC) shows Odetta fronting a small, funky blues combo let by Dr. John. She pays tribute to Lead Belly on Lookin' For a Home (2001 MC) with the help of Kim Wilson and Gatemouth Brown. The Grammy nominated Gonna Let it Shine (2005 MC) is another live tour de force, with Odetta and pianist Seth Fraber singing African American spirituals that have become associated with Christmas and the Civil Rights movement. The Holms Brothers add their patented harmonies to three tracks for some added sanctifying power. In 2005, the Library of Congress in Washington honored Odetta with its Living Legend Award. Odetta has also been honored with a Duke Ellington Fellowship from Yale University, International Folk Alliance and World Folk Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Award and honorary doctorates from Bennett College, Johnson C. Smith University and Colby College.
