ODETTA (December 31, 1930–December 2, 2008)
 
 Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, her solo debut LP, 1956
Odetta in 2005
Courtesy photo
__________
A freshman at Ann Arbor in 1957, I co-founded with the late Bill McAdoo the University of Michigan Folklore Society. Basically, we became a hefty crowd of kids who got together campus hootenannies, where we sang as a group or performed as soloists. When Odetta’s first album came out, we all grabbed it up and learned all her inflections and guitar voicings to such songs as “Jack of Diamonds,” “Been In the Pen,”"If I Had a Ribbon Bow,” and “Glory, Glory (When I Lay My Burden Down,” and “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
Somehow the U of M Folklore Society raised the money to bring this exciting new folk artist to campus to perform. She gave a magnificent concert, confiding backstage that she was nervous, very nervous, and that this was her first college engagement. aFrom then on, I followed her career warmly, even hitch-hiking from Ann Arbor with fellow students Marc Silber and Perry Lederman to catch her at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island in 1960. Decades later it gave me pleasure to watch her play a dramatic role in the spectacular TV mini-series adaptation of Alex Haley’s bestselling book, Roots.
Years later, in the early 21st century I would learn from Maria Muldaur that when she and Bonnie Raitt learned that Odetta was broke, they raised a respectful sum of money to give the woman whose voice and style had influenced them in their formative years as musicians and performing artists.
She was the first one-name artist I ever encountered; a woman whose voice flowed through me from whisper to groan — now a feathery soprano, now a low alto — and who wore her hair cut short long before it became socially significant or fashionable. Dignified and sensuous, Odetta was one of a kind.
– Al Young
 Odetta at the Newport Folk Festival 1960
 Andrew Rosenthal’s NY Times Op-Ed reflections on Odetta
(plus Last Word video interview)
