Odetta
Odetta, born in Birmingham, Alabama, and later raised in Los Angeles, was a powerful and influential figure in American music and the Civil Rights movement. As a child, she faced experiences of racism that shaped her identity, leading her to embrace music as a means of self-expression and individuality. Trained in classical music and deeply influenced by gospel, blues, and folk traditions, Odetta developed a distinctive style characterized by her rich contralto voice and self-taught guitar playing. She gained recognition in the 1950s and 1960s, performing in notable venues and festivals, and collaborated with prominent artists like Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan.
Odetta was not only a celebrated musician but also an active participant in the Civil Rights movement, using her music to inspire and unite people. She performed at significant events, including the March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery march, often singing anthems like "We Shall Overcome." Over her career, she released over twenty-five albums, leaving a lasting impact on various musicians and cultural figures. Odetta's contributions to folk music and her advocacy for civil rights have solidified her legacy as the "Queen of American Folk Music." She passed away in 2008, but her influence continues to resonate across generations.
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Subject Terms
Odetta
Musician, entertainer, and civil rights activist
- Born: December 31, 1930
- Birthplace: Birmingham, Alabama
- Died: December 2, 2008
- Place of death: New York, New York
Odetta, a contralto who often accompanied herself on the guitar, incorporated many styles of music into her repertoire, creatively synthesizing diverse cultural traditions. She participated in the folk music revival of the 1950’s and 1960’s, bringing attention to African American musical traditions. She attended and sang at many civil rights events and was seen by many as a vocal representation of the movement.
Early Life
Odetta (oh-DEH-tuh) was born in Birmingham, Alabama. When she was six years old, she moved with her family to Los Angeles. Her early experiences with racism—both through real-life experiences and through the depictions of black women in popular culture—affected her profoundly. She saw music as the catalyst that allowed her to embrace her individuality and discard the negative self-image she absorbed from her surrounding culture. As a teenager, Odetta took piano and voice lessons, and at school, she sang in the choir and acted in plays. Her vocal training was classically based, and her mother wanted to prepare her for an operatic career. Her family attended southern Baptist churches, where Odetta experienced and absorbed gospel music. She also cited Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson as important influences on her developing style.
Odetta went to Los Angeles City College to study music, working during the day to support herself while taking night classes. As an undergraduate, she began visiting coffee shops and nightclubs, listening to music and performing on her guitar, which she nicknamed “Baby.” When she was nineteen, she toured with a Los Angeles production of the musical Finian’s Rainbow. After visiting Los Angeles on tour, Odetta moved to the city. She performed in nightclubs around San Francisco, particularly at the Tin Angel, and traveled to sing at the Blue Angel in New York City. Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte noticed her talent and promoted her work. Her first album, originally titled Odetta and Larry and later best known as The Tin Angel after the nightclub in which several of the tracks were recorded live, was released on the Fantasy label in 1954.
Life’s Work
Through her diverse experiences with music, Odetta absorbed and integrated influences of blues, jazz, prison work songs, gospel, spirituals, classical, and popular music, bringing together elements of all of them in her distinctive performance style. Her contralto voice was low, powerful, and extraordinarily expressive. Self-taught on the guitar, she developed a style in which the guitar provided a rhythmic counterpoint to her vocal melody. Although she is primarily remembered as a solo singer, Odetta also performed with many other musicians, including Belafonte, Seeger, Count Basie, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul, and Mary as well as with instrumental groups such as the New Black Eagle Jazz Band. She also wrote and performed some of her own songs, although these are less well known than her interpretations of traditional songs and her renditions of songs by contemporary songwriters.
Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, Odetta performed in nightclubs and folk music venues, such as folk festivals (including the Newport Folk Festival), college campuses, and stadiums. In 1960, she performed in Carnegie Hall for the first time; the concert was recorded and released as an album titled Odetta at Carnegie Hall. The records she released during these years reveal a wide range of influences and include the influential Odetta and the Blues (1962) and Odetta Sings Folk Songs (1963). In addition to her singing career, Odetta also had roles in several films, including Faulkner’s Secretary (1960) directed by Tony Richardson, the film adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel Sanctuary (1961), and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974).
Odetta was an important figure in the Civil Rights movement, through direct participation and by setting an example as a strong and outspoken black woman performing in a public sphere. Martin Luther King, Jr., designated Odetta the “Queen of American Folk Music.” She saw music as a crucial underpinning to the movement through its power to unite people. Odetta participated in benefit concerts to support civil rights causes and Vietnam War protests, often singing the anthem “We Shall Overcome” at these events. She participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, performing “I’m on My Way.” Other landmark civil rights events in which she participated include John F. Kennedy’s Dinner with the President (1963), a televised civil rights event, and the 1965 voting-rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Odetta continued to perform and record music through the first decade of the twenty-first century, although with decreasing frequency. Two of her later albums, To Ella (1998) and Looking for a Home (2001), pay homage to African American musical pioneers Ella Fitzgerald andLeadbelly. Late in her career, she received several honors, including the 1999 National Medal of Arts and Humanities, presented by President Bill Clinton, and a Grammy nomination for her album Blues Everywhere I Go (2000). Odetta had wished to sing at President Barack Obama’s inauguration, but she died of heart disease on December 2, 2008.
Significance
Over her lifetime, Odetta released more than twenty-five albums featuring songs from diverse musical traditions. Numerous musicians have cited her as a seminal influence on their work, including Bob Dylan, Carly Simon, Cassandra Wilson, Janis Joplin, Tracy Chapman, and Jewel. Other important figures who cite her influence include author Maya Angelou and civil rights heroine Rosa Parks. Her name also is invoked in Langston Hughes’s poem Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961). Odetta’s most significant cultural contributions include the attention she brought to African American musical traditions, especially in the context of the folk music revival, and her active support of the Civil Rights movement through her presence and her voice.
Bibliography
Alexander, Amy. “Odetta: Strumming the Sounds of Freedom.” In Fifty Black Women Who Changed America. New York: Citadel Press, 1999. This brief chapter addresses Odetta’s musical influences and her role in the Civil Rights movement.
Barnett, LaShonda Katrice, ed. “Odetta.” In I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters and Their Craft. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2007. In her interview with Barnett, Odetta discusses her musical background, including the development of her guitar technique.
Cohen, Ronald D. Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. Although this book does not feature detailed discussion of Odetta’s work, it provides invaluable context for her participation in the folk music revival, with references to her activities scattered throughout the book.
Greenburg, Mark. “Power and Beauty: The Legend of Odetta.” Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine 36, no. 2 (August, 1991): 2-8. This article features an interview with Odetta and extensive discussion of her childhood, her influences, her personal philosophies, and her participation in the folk scene of the 1950’s-1960’s.