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Odetta , Voice of Civil
Rights Movement, Dies at
77
Odetta, the
singer whose resonant
voice wove together the
strongest songs of
American folk music and
the civil rights
movement, died on
Tuesday in Manhattan.
She was 77. . . .
In a
career of almost 60
years, Odetta sang at
coffeehouses and at
Carnegie Hall. She
became one of the
best-known folk-music
artists of the 1950s and
’60s.
Her recordings of blues
and ballads on
dozens of albums
influenced Bob Dylan,
Joan Baez, Janis Joplin
and many others.
Odetta’s voice was
an accompaniment to the
black-and-white images
of the freedom marchers
who walked the roads of
Alabama and Mississippi
and the boulevards of
Washington in the quest
to end racial
discrimination. Rosa
Parks, whose refusal to
give up her seat to a
white led to the boycott
of segregated buses in
Montgomery, Ala., was
once asked which songs
meant the most to her.
“All of the
songs Odetta sings,”
she replied. . . .
Odetta Holmes was
born in Birmingham, Ala., on Dec. 31, 1930, in the
depths of the Depression. The music of that time and
place — particularly prison songs and work songs
recorded in the fields of the Deep South — shaped her
life.
“They were
liberation songs,” she said in the Times interview. She
added: “You’re walking down life’s road, society’s foot
is on your throat, every which way you turn you can’t
get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the
road and you can either lie down and die, or insist upon
your life.”
Her father, Reuben
Holmes, died when she was young, and in 1937 she and her
mother, Flora Sanders, moved to Los Angeles. Three years
later, Odetta discovered that she could sing. . . .
Odetta’s blues and
spirituals led directly to her work for the civil rights
movement. They were two rivers running together, she
said in her Times interview. The words and music
captured “the fury and frustration that I had growing
up.”
Her fame hit a peak
in 1963, when she marched with the Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. and performed for President
John F. Kennedy. But with the assassination of King
in 1968, much of the wind went out of the sails of the
civil rights movement, and the songs of protest and
resistance that had been the movement’s soundtrack began
to fade. Odetta’s fame flagged for years thereafter.
In 1999, President
Bill Clinton awarded her the
National Endowment for the Arts Medal of the Arts
and Humanities, and in 2003 she received a “Living
Legend” tribute from the
Library of Congress and the
Kennedy Center Visionary Award.
Odetta was married three times: to Don Gordon, to Gary
Shead, and, in 1977, to the blues musician Iverson
Minter, known professionally as Louisiana Red.
NYTimes
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The Midnight Special—Bourgeois
Blues (videos)
Odetta, Voice of
American Civil Rights Movement, Dies—Odetta
sang at the August 1963 march on Washington, a pivotal
event in the civil rights movement. Her song that day
was "O Freedom," dating back to slavery days. . . . .
In 1950, Odetta
began singing professionally in a West Coast production
of the musical "Finian's Rainbow," but she found a
stronger calling in the bohemian coffeehouses of San
Francisco. "We would finish our play, we'd go to the
joint, and people would sit around playing guitars and
singing songs and it felt like home," she said in the
2007 interview with The Times.
She began singing
in nightclubs, cutting a striking figure with her guitar
and her close-cropped hair. (She noted late in life that
she was one of the first black performers in the United
States to wear an "Afro" hairstyle -- "they used to call
it 'the Odetta,' " she said.)
Her voice plunged
deep and soared high, and her songs blended the personal
and the political, the theatrical and the spiritual. Her
first solo album, "Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues,"
resonated with an audience hearing old songs made new.
"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." It was her
first, and the songs were "Mule Skinner," "Jack of
Diamonds," "Water Boy," "'Buked and Scorned."
Her blues and
spirituals led directly to her work for the civil-rights
movement. They were two rivers running together, she
said in her interview with The Times. The words and
music captured "the fury and frustration that I had
growing up." They were heard by the people who were
present at the creation of the civil rights movement,
people who "heard on the grapevine about this lady who
was singing these songs." She played countless benefits;
the money she raised underwrote the work of keeping the
movement alive.
Her fame hit a peak
in 1963, when she marched with Martin Luther King in
Selma and performed for President John F. Kennedy. But
after King was assassinated in 1968, the wind went out
of the sails of the civil-rights movement and the songs
of protest and resistance that had been the movement's
soundtrack. Odetta's fame flagged for years thereafter.
She recorded fewer records, although she performed on
stage as a singer
Her fame hit a peak
in 1963, when she marched with Martin Luther King in
Selma and performed for President John F. Kennedy. But
after King was assassinated in 1968, the wind went out
of the sails of the civil-rights movement and the songs
of protest and resistance that had been the movement's
soundtrack. Odetta's fame flagged for years thereafter.
She recorded fewer records, although she performed on
stage as a singer
and an actor, during the 1970s and 1980s. She revived
her career in the 1990s, and thereafter appeared
regularly on "A Prairie Home Companion," the popular
public-radio show. In 1999 she recorded her first album
in 14 years . . .
Herald Tribune
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Responses
Rahim,
What is tragic is that there is little or no
appreciation for her music beyond the Civil Rights
generation. Not even many young whites are aware of her
amazing voice. I remember Odetta receiving some award
from Clinton. I thought how long incoming was the
recognition that she should have gotten decades ago. I
didn’t hear whether Obama had anything to say about her
passing. I guess he is too concerned with jump staring
the economy to be worried about Odetta. What is sad is
that there are no future voices that speak with the
integrity of an Odette for this or even the next
generation.
Stevie Wonder might
be considered the last great Black political singer of
the seventies. Bob Dylan's life is almost spent. Protest
music as a art form is regrettably dead. But what is
ironic is that there is little knowledge of how deeply
engraved in the soul of Black people the music is. From
the spiritual tradition that told "Ole Pharaoh to let my
people go," to Billie's Strange Fruit, to thumping Jazz
classic Compared to What and Stevie and Marvin Gaye's
work from their albums "Inner Vision" and "What's Going
On"-there have always been protest in Black music.
Hell even Mister
Big sang about "Four Dead in Ohio" before he turned to
pontificating about the bedroom. The Last Poets, Sista
Solider—many of the original rappers—even cried out
against social injustice before gangstas hijacked the
political content of rap music. What is can I say Rahim?
Music is the heart and soul of Black America. What we
don't preserve we are doomed to lose.—amin
sharif
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I was saddened when
I read that in yesterday's paper. First,
Makeba and now Odetta. We are witnessing the
passing of a very creative and committed generation of
beautiful, gifted people.—Miriam
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posted 4
December 2008 |
