Odetta dies – wanted to sing for Obama
by sernabad
Odetta, whose deep resonant voice powered the songs of freedom and civil rights, died yesterday. She had been hoping to sing at President Obama’s inauguration next month.
Born in Alabama in the middle of the Depression, she discovered her voice when she was just nine. For awhile she studied the blues, jazz, and prison and work songs, but it was folk singing that fueled her passion for social justice.
Her first album, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, was recorded in San Francisco when she was just 25 years old; Bob Dylan credits that album with giving him the focus for his own career. In 2007, in a Carnegie Hall tribute to Bruce Springsteen, she electrified The Boss when she turned his 57 Channels (from his Human Touch album, 1992) into a chanted poem.
Odetta was 77.
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