ODETTA, THE VOICE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Today, The Grandma has been listening to Odetta, the American singer and civil rights activist, who died on a day like today in 2008.

Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930-December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and civil rights activist, often referred to as The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement. Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she influenced many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin.

In 2011, Time magazine included her recording of Take This Hammer on its list of the 100 Greatest Popular Songs, stating that Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music.

Odetta was born Odetta Holmes in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Her father, Reuben Holmes, had died when she was young, and in 1937 she and her mother, Flora Sanders, moved to Los Angeles.

She began operatic training at the age of thirteen. After attending Belmont High School, she studied music at Los Angeles City College supporting herself as a domestic worker. Flora had hoped to see her daughter follow in the footsteps of Marian Anderson, but Odetta doubted a large black girl like herself would ever perform at the Metropolitan Opera.

In 1944, she made her professional debut in musical theater as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre, working alongside Elsa Lanchester. 

In 1949, she joined the national touring company of the musical Finian's Rainbow.

While on tour with Finian's Rainbow, Odetta fell in with an enthusiastic group of young balladeers in San Francisco, and after 1950 she concentrated on folk singing.

She made her name playing at the Blue Angel nightclub in New York City, and the hungry i in San Francisco. At Tin Angel also in San Francisco in 1953 and 1954, Odetta recorded the album Odetta and Larry with Larry Mohr for Fantasy Records.

A solo career followed, with Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues (1956) and At the Gate of Horn (1957). Odetta Sings Folk Songs was one of the best-selling folk albums of 1963.

In 1959 she appeared on Tonight with Belafonte, a nationally televised special. She sang Water Boy and a duet with Belafonte, There's a Hole in My Bucket.

More information: The New Yorker

In 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. called her The Queen of American Folk Music. Also in 1961, the duo Harry Belafonte and Odetta made number 32 in the UK Singles Chart with the song There's a Hole in the Bucket.

She is remembered for her performance at March on Washington, the 1963 civil rights demonstration, at which she sang O Freedom. She described her role in the civil rights movement as one of the privates in a very big army.

Broadening her musical scope, Odetta used band arrangements on several albums rather than playing alone. She released music of a more jazz style on albums like Odetta and the Blues (1962) and Odetta (1967). She gave a remarkable performance in 1968 at the Woody Guthrie memorial concert.

Odetta acted in several films during this period, including Cinerama Holiday (1955); a cinematic production of William Faulkner's Sanctuary (1961); and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974).

In 1961, she appeared in an episode of the TV series Have Gun, Will Travel, playing the wife of a man sentenced to hang (The Hanging of Aaron Gibbs).

On September 29, 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts' National Medal of Arts.

In 2004, Odetta was honoured at the Kennedy Center with the Visionary Award along with a tribute performance by Tracy Chapman. 

In 2005, the Library of Congress honored her with its Living Legend Award.

In mid-September 2001, Odetta performed with the Boys' Choir of Harlem on the Late Show with David Letterman, appearing on the first show after Letterman resumed broadcasting, having been off the air for several nights following the events of September 11; they performed This Little Light of Mine.

In December 2006, the Winnipeg Folk Festival honored Odetta with their Lifetime Achievement Award. 

In February 2007, the International Folk Alliance awarded Odetta as Traditional Folk Artist of the Year.

On March 24, 2007, a tribute concert to Odetta was presented at the Rachel Schlesinger Theatre by the World Folk Music Association with live performance and video tributes.

She made an appearance on June 30, 2008, at The Bitter End on Bleecker Street, in New York City for a concert in tribute to Liam Clancy. Her last big concert, before thousands of people, was in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on October 4, 2008, for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Her last performance was at Hugh's Room in Toronto on October 25.

In November 2008, Odetta's health began to decline and she began receiving treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. She had hoped to perform at Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009, but she died twenty-nine days before her 78th birthday, on December 2, 2008, in New York City, at the age of 77.

More information: The New York Times

 The blues is celebration,
because when you take sorrow and turn it into music,
you transform it.

Odetta