Odetta

Source:

 African American National Biography

Odetta

(31 Dec. 1930–2 Dec. 2008),

folk singer and musician, was born Odetta Holmes Felious Gordon to Rueben and Flora Holmes in Birmingham, Alabama (her parents' occupations are unknown). Rueben Holmes died when Odetta was a young girl, and Flora remarried shortly after, giving her children their stepfather's last name, Felious. In 1936 the family left the economically depressed South and migrated to Los Angeles, California, where Odetta spent her adolescent years.

At age ten, Odetta's teachers discovered her vocal abilities and encouraged her to pursue her interest in music. When Odetta was thirteen, her mother enrolled her in classical voice lessons. Odetta made remarkable progress and developed her coloratura soprano voice; however, her training was interrupted when her mother could no longer afford the lessons. Felious, who worked at the Turnabout Theatre in Beverly Hills, introduced Odetta to the puppeteer Harry Burnette. He was impressed with the young singer's abilities and agreed to sponsor Odetta's voice lessons until she graduated from high school. After graduation, she assumed the cost of her musical education, and enrolled at the Los Angeles City College to study classical music and voice.

Though classical music was Odetta's first passion, her exposure to folk music in San Francisco's North Beach community altered her career path and her perspective on musical genres. In 1949–1950, she toured with the Los Angeles production of Finian's Rainbow. While playing dates in San Francisco, Odetta frequented North Beach, where she reconnected with junior high school friend and aspiring folk artist Jo Mapes. Mapes taught Odetta about folk music's long history as a socially conscious art form and its potential to mobilize a generation of young Americans. Odetta began spending her days off at North Beach where she fully immersed herself in folk music culture, learning how to play acoustic guitar and studying the bluesy chords of the musician Sonny Terry's harmonica. She and Mapes frequented the Vesuvios Bar and performed with the folk duo Wilson and Nan Fowler.

In the fall of 1950 Odetta returned to Los Angeles where she worked as a housekeeper and honed her skills as a guitarist and vocalist. Discouraged by the racial barriers standing in the way of a black woman hoping to enjoy a lucrative career in opera, Odetta committed herself to developing a folk repertoire that showcased her eclectic musical taste. She cultivated her signature sound, which synthesized elements of blues and gospel with operatic techniques. Odetta began to experiment with her voice, singing notes from coloratura soprano to baritone. Her music was as varied as the artists from whom she drew inspiration—Marian Anderson, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte, Paul Robeson, and Mahalia Jackson. She appropriated prison work songs and spirituals to articulate her anger and frustration with racism and prejudice in the United States.

Her dedication to folk music proved fruitful as she performed regularly in the early fifties. She was featured at several Los Angeles venues and was once billed with her personal hero Paul Robeson. Returning to San Francisco, Odetta gained visibility performing at the city's most popular folk music dive, the hungry i. Odetta garnered the attention of the legendary folk singers Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte, who promoted her career, securing her shows at folk clubs and introducing her to record label executives.

Odetta traveled to New York City and performed briefly in Greenwich Village at the Blue Angel. She soon returned to San Francisco and played at the Tin Angel, where she met wide acclaim. Her performances at the Tin Angel were recorded and released on her first album, Tin Angel (1954) with Fantasy Records. In 1959 she played at the first annual Newport Folk Festival, a weekend-long concert that showcased the vast range of aesthetic styling within folk music—from Odetta's bluesy folk to the commercial sound of the Kingston Trio.

The 1960s were a prolific period for the rising star as folk music became a premiere American music form. Odetta yielded sixteen albums, including the critically acclaimed Christmas Spirituals (1960), Folk Songs (1963), which became one of the best selling folk albums of the year, and Odetta Plays Dylan (1965), making Odetta one of the most popular and highly paid folk artists. Like other folk singers, Odetta had a particularly strong fan base among the U.S. counterculture milieu, including leftist college students, bohemians, intellectuals, and activists. In 1960 Time magazine named Odetta, along with Seeger, Baez, the Weavers, and a handful of others, the most lucrative folk performers in America.

Odetta was one of few folk musicians who could transgress the color line while maintaining the respect and admiration of both the black and white communities. Folk artists did not have a large African American fan base, yet Odetta had a significant black audience. Her commitment to black liberation was evident even on songs that were not explicitly political. She performed at the 1963 March on Washington concert and she participated in the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. heralded Odetta as the “Queen of American Folk Music” (Blothcher, “Oh, Our Odetta,” Chronogram, 30 Apr. 2007, 1).

After her monumental success in the 1960s, Odetta's rigorous recording and performing schedule slowed dramatically, producing only two albums between 1970 and 1990. However, a new generation of fans in the 1990s rediscovered her music, and several of her albums were rereleased. In 1999 she recorded Blues Everywhere I Go, her first studio album in over a decade. Blues was nominated for a Grammy in 2000. President Bill Clinton honored Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts Medal for the Arts in 1999. In 2006 she headlined a tour of the United States, Canada, Latvia, and Scotland.

Odetta made an indelible mark in the world of music. Her anomalous hybrid of classical music and black folk music traditions influenced artists such as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and Tracy Chapman. She redefined images of black womanhood and transgressed America's deeply entrenched color line, making her an icon for generations of African Americans. Odetta died of heart disease in New York City, aged 77.

processed xml | source xml