Odetta, the singer whose deep voice wove together the emotions and dreams of the Civil Rights movement, has died. She was 77.The impact that Odetta had on those that heard her goes deep. She performed in coffee houses, influenced the likes of Bob Dylan, Janice Joplan, and 3 generations of folk artists.
Odetta sang at the Civil Rights march on Washington in August, 1663. Her voice sang out, " Oh freedom. Oh freedom over me, and before I'd be a slave, I'd be buried in my gave. And, go home to my Lord and be free."
She was born in Birmingham, AL at a time when "work" songs passed down by slaves shaped her life. " They were liberation songs," she said in an interview with the New York Times in 2007. "Your walking down life's road, society's foot in on your throat, every which way you turn, you can't get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the road and you either lie down and die or you insist upon life."
Rosa Parks loved her, Dr Martin Luther King requested that she march with him in 1963, and she performed for John F. Kennedy.
Her reach was long and her songs rest in all of our hearts. She had a gift and graciously used it to weave the sorrow of the past with a hope for today.
Hear Odetta sing below:
Odetta, Civil Rights Movement,
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