Odetta, Voice of Civil Rights Movement, Dies at 77

Odetta, a titan of American folk music, demonstrated time and again that her talent transcended any one style. She died Dec. 2, 2008, at 77.

Odetta was a folk icon, but her music included blues, jazz, spirituals, Appalachian songs and English folk songs. Her 27th solo album, ''Blues Everywhere I Go'' (2000), paid homage to the great blueswomen of the ‘20s and ‘30s: Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Victoria Spivey, Sippie Wallace and Memphis Minnie.

''One of the many reasons I wanted to do the blues album is that I get pretty fed up with stereotyping of our black community as being represented by prurient sex or 'I'm gonna shoot you or I'm gonna cut you','' she said in a phone conversation from her home in New York in July 2000. ''There was blues in the '20s and '30s that dealt with society's foot stepping on our throats.''

Social protest was evident in Odetta's vast repertory. The seeds of social conscience were planted during her childhood in Los Angeles. ''They didn't have signs for black and whites, but you knew where you could and couldn't go,'' she said. ''There were no signs, but there was attitude.''

Odetta Holmes was born in 1930 in Birmingham, Ala., but grew up in Los Angeles. “A teacher told my mother that I had a voice, that maybe I should study,” she said. She later found her own voice by listening to blues, jazz, and folk music from the African-American and Anglo-American traditions. She earned a music degree from Los Angeles City College. Her training in classical music and musical theater work was “a nice exercise, but it had nothing to do with my life,” she said. “The folk songs were -- the anger.”

She left home at 18 to perform in the chorus of a national tour of ''Finian's Rainbow,'' a musical, appropriately enough, about prejudice. She settled in San Francisco where she learned to play the guitar and began performing in the folk clubs.

Her first solo album, "Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues," resonated with an audience hearing old songs made new in a voice that plunged deep and soared high. “The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta,” Bob Dylan said, referring to that record, in a 1978 interview with Playboy. He said he heard “something vital and personal. I learned all the songs on that record." The 1956 album included “Mule Skinner,” “Jack of Diamonds,” “Water Boy,” and “ ‘Buked and Scorned.” ’’

Odetta’s reputation was that of a singer of uncompromising integrity as a result of performances at the Newport Festival, at Carnegie Hall and for President John F. Kennedy on the nationally televised program, ''Dinner With the President.'' She marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and she sang at the 1963 March on Washington. Odetta was an influence on Joan Baez and Janis Joplin and younger singer-songwriters like Tracy Chapman.

Her acting credits included Tony Richardson's ''Sanctuary'' (1960) with Yves Montand and Lee Remick. And on television she appeared with Cicely Tyson in ''The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.'' She also appeared with the Stratford Shakespeare Company in Ontario and at the Neptune Theater in Halifax.

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