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 "If
only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul
like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so
quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time"
– Maya Angelou, Poet Laureate
Her name is Odetta, and she will turn 75 this New Year's Eve.
Over the course of the last half-century, she has become one
of the most celebrated figures in music. Odetta has sung for
American Presidents, walked arm-in-arm with great leaders of
the Civil Rights movement and served as an inspiration to several
generations of musicians, most famously Bob Dylan and Janis
Joplin. And now, she has just released one of her finest achievements,
Gonna Let It Shine: A Concert for the Holidays, on
M.C. Records.
Recorded before a worshipful audience at New York's Fordham
University and carried live on public-supported WFUV radio,
Gonna Let It Shine: A Concert for the Holidays offers
the incomparable Odetta performing songs of inspiration and
freedom, joined by her friends the Holmes Brothers and pianist
Seth Farber. Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock
provides the liner notes.
Odetta sings 15 songs on Gonna Let It Shine, including
"This Little Light of Mine" (with the Holmes Brothers), "Rise
Up Shepherd," "Mary Had a Baby," "What Month Was Jesus Born
In," "Shout for Joy," and "Virgin Mary Had One Son."
Why these songs at this time? Producer Mark Carpentieri believes
that currently there is nothing available like this collection.
"I suppose you could say it's a good record to release during
a trying period for many people, especially in light of the
recent events in the Gulf Coast. The music is uplifting, but
one doesn't have to be religious to enjoy and appreciate it.
It's just the beautiful spirituality that the holidays are really
about."
Odetta says simply, "These songs come out of difficult times,
and since the difficult times haven't been fixed, the songs
are still here for us."
Also, she says, recording them in front of an audience has special
meaning. "Doing a live album has more vitality. Human beings
have language skills other than just verbal: we read each other.
When performing, there is true communication. I get energy from
the audience, and they get energy from me. We are really doing
the concert together, which is very different from a dry studio
where it's just you and a microphone."
Odetta loves the jubilation contained within these songs. "Christianity
tends to be somber," she says. "There isn't very much 'jump
for joy,' but these songs are fun. They speak to joy, and they
are a way of teaching, of passing on information. If we look
at a song such as 'What Month Was Jesus Born In,' it relates
to the period of slavery when for two weeks in December slaves
couldn't plow or plant, so it was time off. There was celebration
of Christmas, and the song itself is a rhyme to teach children
the months of the year."
Odetta's version of Leadbelly's "Midnight Special," done originally
on her early live album Gate of Horn nearly 50 years
ago, is revisited on the new Gonna Let It Shine. The
"Midnight Special," she notes, is not part of a traditional
holiday repertoire. "It's about being locked up in prison and
hearing a train whistle. It calls to us about going places and
being other than where we are. The man in prison wishes the
light to shine on him."
Also included as part of Gonna Let It Shine is her
"Freedom Trilogy," comprised of "Oh Freedom," "Come and Go with
Me" and "I'm On My Way," songs she has performed during the
long battle for Civil Rights. Looking back over the years, she
says, "Paul Robeson is a hero of mine. He taught me that it's
not only possible but necessary to be responsible to our brothers
and sisters throughout the world."
Odetta was born on New Year's Eve in 1930 as America entered
the second year of the Great Depression, segregation and disfranchisement
remained in place, and the droughts of the Dust Bowl forced
poor families off the land. As a child in Alabama and then California,
she knew difficult times and for a time cleaned houses. But
her singing talent was spotted early on and led to formal voice
lessons at 14. She joined an ensemble cast headed by Elsa Lancaster
at Hollywood's Turnabout Theatre and then, at age 19, became
a member of the chorus for West Coast productions of Finian's
Rainbow and Guys and Dolls.
Odetta found her way into the folk music scene in the early
1950s, singing at the famed Hungry i and the Tin Angel in San
Francisco and the Blue Angel in New York City, where her appearances
caused Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte to become champions of
her remarkable talent. She recorded her first album, appropriately
titled Tin Angel in 1954, and subsequently cut many albums including
two vastly influential live LPs in the 1960s, Odetta at
Carnegie Hall and Odetta at Town Hall, followed
by the studio album Odetta Sings Dylan – the
first completely dedicated to his songs. The relationship between
Odetta and Dylan dates back to 1960 when it is said she advised
the young Minnesotan, even before he reached NYC, that if he
stayed with music he would most likely succeed.
Gonna Let It Shine is her third M.C. Records project,
following the Grammy-nominated Blues Everywhere I Go
(1999) and the follow-up Looking for a Home (2001),
which received multiple W.C. Handy Award nominations. At White
House ceremonies in 1999, President Clinton presented her with
the National Medal of Arts & Humanities. In addition, Odetta
was among the initial group of select artists to be honored
with the first Duke Ellington Fellowship Award from Yale University,
she's a recipient of both the International Folk Alliance and
World Folk Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Awards and
a holder of honorary doctorates from Bennett College, Johnson
C. Smith University and Colby College.
The New York Times once described this great American
artist in the following terms: "Odetta's voice remains a remarkably
flexible instrument; capable both of soft-spun timbres and one
with a powerful cutting edge, equally convincing in resonant,
low tones and scat-like passages way up high." She is a national
treasure.
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