Odetta

Summary

Podcast Summary: The History Chicks — Odetta (Feb 12, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, The History Chicks, Becca and Susan, dive into the life, career, and legacy of Odetta Holmes—the iconic singer and activist often referred to as "the voice of the Civil Rights Movement." With rich detail, personal anecdotes, and characteristic wit, the hosts trace Odetta’s early life in the segregated South, her journey into folk music, her pivotal role in the cultural and political upheavals of the 1960s, and her enduring influence on generations of musicians and activists.

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Key Discussion Points

Odetta’s Early Life and Family Background

• Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Dec 31, 1930, to Reuben Holmes and Flora Sanders Holmes.
  • Early instability: father had previously lost his first wife and Odetta's mother was only 18 at marriage ([02:14]–[03:51]).
• Childhood trauma and resilience: her mother’s escape from an abusive marriage (with help from “Aunt T.”), childhood marginalization by extended family ([04:05]–[04:58]).
• Stepfather Zadok Filias: described as “the closest to an angel that I have ever been around,” who adopted Odetta ([06:17]).
• Decision for the family to relocate to Los Angeles to escape segregation, Jim Crow laws, and economic hardship ([07:26]–[07:43]).
• Vivid memories of racism: “the colored drinking fountains and the segregated seating... most memorable clash with Jim Crow came right at the end … the conductor angrily yelled at her…and forcibly pushed them to the back train cars” ([07:43]).

Musical and Cultural Influences

• Mixed neighborhood in LA: diverse community and communal practices ([08:31]).
• Early exposure to contradictory historical narratives about race, marked by trauma from romanticized textbooks about slavery:
  • Odetta: “I believed I swallowed that thing and it damaged me. I still have scars from that.” ([10:29])
• Integral role of parents and community: classical music, swing, blues, opera, and big band in the home ([11:32]).
• Discovery of extraordinary vocal talent during a piano lesson; began formal classical training ([12:14]).
• Practiced relentlessly: “She learned breath control, phrasing and emotional precision, projection of feeling that would later make her folk singing so distinctive.” ([12:14])

Young Adulthood, Finding Her Voice

• Struggles with self-image and loss: father’s death (Zadok), discomfort with appearance ([13:39]).
• Early theatrical experiences: Turnabout Theater in Hollywood, mentorships, music school ([15:04]).
• First radical act of self-acceptance: cut off chemically straightened hair at summer camp—embracing her natural self ([15:04]–[16:36]).
  • Odetta: “She was beginning to find out who she was.” ([16:36])

The Turn Toward Folk Music

• Unable to break opera’s color barrier, pivoted to musical theater ("Finian’s Rainbow") ([20:01]–[21:20]).
• Epiphany with folk music amid San Francisco’s bohemian scene:
  • Odetta: "For the first time in my life, I heard the music of the people I come from ... the folk music hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the honesty that I'd been missing in my music." ([21:20])
• Learned guitar and began performing in coffee houses, connecting to traditional work songs and spirituals ([22:56]).
  • Odetta: "With these work songs, I could get my anger out without saying, 'I hate you, you hate me.'" ([22:56])

Rising Career and Key Collaborations

• First professional break: Hungry Eye Club in San Francisco, on a tip from best friend Jo Mapes ([25:21]).
• Powerful presence: “She didn’t just sing these songs, she lived them ... audiences were transfixed” ([26:14]).
• Dropped her surname, performing simply as “Odetta”—iconic ([27:45]).
• Early friendships and collaborations: Harry Belafonte, Maya Angelou, and influence on musicians like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez ([28:05], [28:35], [29:17]).
  • Bob Dylan: "The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta ... That album was just something vital and personal. I learned all the songs on that record." ([28:35])
• Odetta’s educational on-stage history lessons—communicating generational stories through music ([30:14]).

Challenges: Physical Appearance, Racism & Industry Obstacles

• Media scrutiny on her appearance: “Her natural hair—controversial; this drew commentary more than her artistry” ([31:48]).
• Ongoing struggle to secure supportive management and fair contracts; limited radio play due to industry payola ([42:16]).
• Broke new ground on national TV: duet with Tennessee Ernie Ford, breaking color barriers ([42:55]).

Role in Civil Rights Movement

• Revered by Martin Luther King, Jr. as the “Queen of American folk music”; Rosa Parks said she listened to “all the songs Odetta sings” ([47:10]).
• March on Washington, 1963: Only a fragment of her performance remains—“all the camera lights went out.” Odetta: “That kind of hurts.” ([48:24])
  • Odetta: "For the first time in my life, I wasn't a performer working before an audience separated from it. I was part of it, and it was part of me." ([49:00])
• Performed at Selma-to-Montgomery march; songs featured in the 2014 film Selma ([49:16]–[50:55]).

Later Life, Evolution, and Legacy

• World tours (Europe, Africa, Soviet Union)—loved by international audiences even as U.S. mainstream faded in focus ([53:14], [54:30], [68:00]).
• Musical evolution: incorporated jazz, blues, and later, jazzier, more experimental styles ([66:34]).
• Advocated for preservation of folk culture—supporting the Folk Music Archives at the Library of Congress ([64:10]).
• Enduring influence: “many of her songs became folk music classics, taught in schools, covered by many, part of American culture” ([62:39]).
• Personal life: close ties with her half-sister Jimmy Lee, meaningful quasi-adoptive relationships ([61:49]).

Recognition and Late-Career Renaissance

• Odetta Sings Dylan (1965) and continued collaborations, despite challenging sessions with Dylan himself ([57:22]–[59:37]).
• Honored with numerous lifetime awards: National Medal of the Arts (1999), Library of Congress Living Legend Award (2005), Kennedy Center Visionary Award ([78:08], [79:46], [80:22]).
• High-profile appearances in her 70s and during historic moments (post-9/11 David Letterman performance) ([78:54]).
  • Susan: “She was joyful. She exuded hope and optimism and joy, which is what we all needed right then.” ([79:30])
• Persevered through illness, continued to tour with oxygen tank in her final years ([81:15]–[82:00]).
• Legacy honored by institutions—Alabama Music Hall of Fame, Smithsonian, Rolling Stone’s Greatest Singers, and more ([84:04]–[84:35]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On damaging school narratives:
  Odetta: “I swallowed that thing and it damaged me. I still have scars from that.” ([10:29])

• On folk music as awakening:
  Odetta: “For the first time in my life, I heard the music of the people I come from ... The folk music hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the honesty that I'd been missing.” ([21:20])

• Bob Dylan on Odetta:
  “The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta... That album was just something vital and personal. I learned all the songs on that record.” ([28:35])

• On performing at the March on Washington:
  Odetta: “When I got up to sing, I think all the film crew went to lunch because all the camera lights... went out. You know, that kind of hurts.” ([48:24])

  Odetta: “For the first time in my life, I wasn't a performer working before an audience separated from it. I was part of it, and it was part of me.” ([49:00])

• On her evolving artistry:
  Odetta to Dylan (approx.): “If you, you know, you are a different person every time you sing it because of experiences you've had... You can't expect other people to sing the song with experience the same way that you do.” ([59:37])

• On social injustice:
  Odetta: “There’s a lot of stuff that just doesn’t compute. And I think people need to be soothed by knowing they're not the only ones feeling like there’s something wrong. The words to traditional folk songs were written out of concern, and there's as much to be concerned about now as there ever was.” ([54:30])

• Maya Angelou’s tribute:
  Maya Angelou: “If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and soul like Odetta's would come along... One of my great blessings is to have known her for 50 years, to have been enriched by hearing that voice, to have been informed by knowing that soul. This great artist sings the drama and, yes, the comedy of this human journey... Her mouth was full of the glory of our aspirations. Thank you, Odetta, for continuing to define and enlighten our load.” ([90:50])

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Important Timestamps & Sections

• [02:14] – Odetta's birth, early family trauma
• [04:58] – Childhood observations, intelligence, resilience
• [07:43] – Move to Los Angeles, vivid experience of racism
• [10:29] – Impact of racist school textbooks
• [12:14] – Discovery and development of her voice
• [16:36] – Cutting her hair; embrace of authenticity
• [21:20] – Folk music epiphany, San Francisco
• [25:21]–[26:14] – Early professional performances, commanding presence
• [28:35] – Bob Dylan's story
• [44:33] – National TV color barrier (Tennessee Ernie Ford Show)
• [48:24]–[49:00] – March on Washington performance, personal account
• [57:22]–[59:37] – Challenges working with Bob Dylan on Odetta Sings Dylan
• [78:54] – Post-9/11 Letterman appearance
• [80:22] – Lifetime recognition and achievement awards
• [90:50] – Maya Angelou’s closing tribute

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Overall Tone and Style

The episode is warm, conversational, and deeply respectful, mixing deep research with pop culture references, playful banter, and emotional reflection. The hosts are candid about historical injustices, Odetta’s challenges, and the cultural impact of her life and music, offering listeners both context and emotional connection.

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Conclusion

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in American music, the civil rights movement, or the resilience and artistry of remarkable women. Through lively storytelling, the hosts illuminate Odetta’s towering legacy: her powerful voice, her courage in the face of adversity, her role as a bridge between musical worlds and as a crucial force in American history.

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“Her mouth was full of the glory of our aspirations. Thank you, Odetta, for continuing to define and enlighten our load.” — Maya Angelou ([90:50])

Transcript

[Becca]

Welcome to the History tricks where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

[Susan]

And Here is your 30 second summary. Odetta was one of the defining voices of American folk music. Though she'd been trained in classical music, she was drawn to spirituals work songs, traditional ballads and blues. These songs told the stories of true life, of struggle and of those who overcame oppression. Odetta used her theater training and deep resonant voice to bring these messages to life. Her work inspired later artists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, served as a soundtrack for the social reforms of the 1960s and led to her honorary title as quote, the voice of the civil Rights movement. The end. Let's talk about Odetta.

[Becca]

But first let's drop her into history. In 1950, in a brazen, well planned armed robbery, 11 masked men stole $1.2 million in cash and 1.5 million in checks and securities from the Brinks Armored Car Company building in Boston. The television show what's My line? Began its 17 year run. Clive Staples Lewis, known as C.S. lewis, his book the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was first published. James Dean's acting career began with a role in a Pepsi commercial. And at the age of 22, Shirley Temple retired from film acting. The first Formula One World Championship was held in England. Despite efforts by activists and some parliamentarians, the Swiss government refused to address women's suffrage. This debate continued until partial rights were issued in 1971 and full voting rights for Swiss women were granted in 1990. Born this year was Sybil shepherd, future PM of New Zealand Helen Clark, Martin Short, Stevie Wonder, Bill Murray, Tom Petty and Anne Princess Royal. George Orwell, Edna St. Vincent Millais and George Bernard Shaw all died. And in 1950, Odetta picked up a guitar, veered off her life plan and entered the world of folk music.

[Susan]

Odetta Holmes was born in Birmingham, Alabama on December 31, 1930, the only child of Reuben Holmes and Flora Sanders Holmes. And we are not going to spend too much time with papa. He, at 30, had just become a widower and was left with a young son, a man in town that he knew. Let's call him Grandpa Jim as he is our Odetta's grandpa. Grandpa Jim had three daughters and simply married the youngest one, only 18 years old, away to this man, regardless of her feelings on the matter, get your feet under someone else's table.

[Becca]

Um.

[Susan]

Wow. Not cool. Papa Rubin had never been to school past sixth grade, but in this time and place he was able to rise in the local factory. He had a good income. This man would go off to his good, well paying job at the steel mill and lock his new young wife in the house so she couldn't go anywhere. And almost immediately, Mama Flora was pregnant and really in a tough situation.

[Becca]

Mama Flora did not have much more education than Ruben or her father did. She was very innocent when she got married. Married, was shocked. She had never been courted, met this man, and she was stuck in this relationship taking care of the child that isn't hers, first off. Secondly, pregnant, scared out of her wits, because this is a very, very bad marriage. I mean, there's red flags going everywhere. You know, she was just 18 when they got married, but they lied on the marriage certificate to say she was 20. So the difference between 20 and 30 doesn't sound that bad. That's how it started off.

[Susan]

It was one of her aunts, or if you're Susan, aunts, that broke her out of there and airlifted her away to one of her uncle's houses to take refuge from her marriage and from her husband, which is where our Odetta was born.

[Becca]

That aunt, Aunt T. Which is so fun to say she was something else, because later in life, Odetta said she was a. This is a direct, quote, mean lady, even beyond the Southern belle. So that's the woman with the cojones to get Laura out of this situation.

[Susan]

She really ever only saw her father once. He was chased out of her life by Mama's protective extended family. Protective to a certain extent, I'm going to say, because as I read these stories about her childhood, I'm kind of appalled at how comfortable the extended family, protective or not, was to call her ugly or big. And making sure she knew her mother had tried to get rid of her before she was born type of thing. Although they phrased it like, well, I sure am glad that didn't work.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Susan]

But even in those early years, something about Odetta stood out. And family members later recalled that she was quiet and very observant. She's intelligent, she's taking everything in. She was very serious, and she seemed to live a life older than her years.

[Becca]

When Odetta was very young, Flora met another local steel worker. This whole town, Birmingham, is built on the steel industry, so there's a lot of steel workers. And the neighborhood they're in is a planned community by the owners of the steel plant. So we all know from history what kind of neighborhood that would be. You know, if you lose your job, you're out. But she did get married to a Zadig Filias, and this guy seems to be 180 from Reuben. He seemed to be very kind and caring and just the perfect person for Flora to get on with the next step of her life. And she soon did by having another child, another daughter, whose name was Jimmy Lee. This is Odetta's half sister. And the half didn't matter too much to Odetta, but it mattered to the larger Filias family, the large family unit that was in the area, because Jimmy Lee was a blood relation and Odetta was not, and it mattered to them.

[Susan]

So she was a little bit ostracized by. And I love his name, Zadok.

[Becca]

I know.

[Susan]

Zadok Felius. She did say, however, Odetta, that Zadok Filias, her stepfather, was, and I quote, the closest to an angel that I have ever been around. She was adopted by Zadok, and she always called him Daddy. So we're going to be like, okay, yeah, we've got a nice family unit now. The outer ring, though, is still. Now, we have talked about Birmingham before on the show, and it's, shall we say, poor position with regard to equality. Ground zero, some might say, for quite a bit, of bad treatment and behavior of African Americans. Not only that, as the Depression got a hold of America, the steel mills, on which so much employment and housing in the city depended, began to go under, and unemployment began to skyrocket. And Zadok, who had been a miner, not a minor, as in under 18, but a minor one who mines before he began to work in the steel mills, had developed black lung, and the doctors advised him to move to a drier climate.

[Becca]

And the whole family was looking at this grim future in Birmingham, with Jim Crow laws being heavily enforced, also by a militia of sorts, of the Ku Klux Klan. So it really wasn't a hard decision to move to a warmer climate in Los Angeles, California.

[Susan]

Birmingham had always been an extremely segregated town, and Odetta, in her later life, had vague memories of the colored drinking fountains and the segregated seating in the balconies at the movie theaters. But her most memorable clash with Jim Crow came right at the end of their time in Alabama, as they boarded the Birmingham train to move to Los Angeles with her family. The conductor angrily yelled at her, and the family called them, shall we say, racial names, which we can imagine, and forcibly pushed them to the back train cars, the ones reserved for, quote, coloreds only. That was a vivid memory, unlike the vague memories of drinking fountains and separate entrances that she never forgot.

[Becca]

Yeah, she's just seven. So that's an age where you start remembering and getting impressions on life, you know, and just developing your personality. So it didn't surprise me that that was one stuck so deeply for so long. Zadik and his brother Otto moved out first to Los Angeles and rented half of a duplex, a small place at 1244 North Vigil. You can see this house on Google Earth. It is being fully renovated and it is up for sale for $900,000. Now, for most of us in the United States, California real estate numbers are just mind boggling, Right? But that's a lot in this particular neighborhood. But there are three to four units in the whole place, an outbuilding, and so it could conceivably be rental income, but still, that just blew my mind. This neighborhood that they moved into, though at this time was very culturally mixed. There was blacks, there was whites, there was Japanese, there was Russian, there was Hispanic. Later on, Odetta said everyone coexisted with each other. If someone was sick, my mother, who had probably only said hello to them, would immediately go over to their house, find out what they needed. If there's washing or cleaning or shopping or whatever, when we got up to age, we would be sent to do those chores. It was community, but also a place.

[Susan]

You know, there was official discrimination in the Deep south, right. There were signs that would tell you so here it was a little bit more insidious. She remembered reading, I'm going to say, romanticized descriptions of slavery in her first history textbooks when she was a little kid. Something, by the way, that's coming back today. Didn't I just read there are some textbooks that refer to enslaved people as volunteer laborers or something like that?

[Becca]

Yes, and well cared for. And the happy, happy masters. There's air quotes in there, people.

[Susan]

This is what Odetta said. And I quote, you know, they told me in grammar school as we were reading about slavery, that the slaves were happy and singing all the time. That was at a time when I felt, and I think we all go through this, that it couldn't be in this book if it weren't true. And I believed I swallowed that thing and it damaged me. I still have scars from that. The internment of her Japanese American neighbors after Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl harbor was something else that she saw that stuck and began to curdle. She went also to Mount Hollywood Church, a very progressive church led by a minister named Alan Hunter, who preached a social justice message. He had been one of the first people to integrate his congregation in Los Angeles. So the viewing of injustices and the reinforcement of integration and progressive messages are very, very early influences on her development.

[Becca]

Other influences, obviously are her parents. Flora and Zadok wanted, like most parents do better for their children. Flora encouraged her girls to listen to classical music, opera. They had the radio playing while they were cleaning. Zadok's taste in music leaned more towards swing and blues and big band and the Grand Old Opry on that same radio. So her musical tastes are being developed, and they're very eclectic. Mama Flora also insisted on proper diction, and she insisted on appearances. She hot combed her daughter's hair just like every other black mama in the neighborhood in the entire state. We talked a lot about that in the Madam C.J. walker and Annie Malone episodes.

[Susan]

Mama also, in her quest for refinement, gave her daughters piano lessons. And it was during a music lesson that Odetta, who genuinely was just kind of clowning around, hit a note that Mariah Carey would be proud of. And what is going on? Said the teacher, and recommended when Mama came to pick her up, this child should probably take voice lessons. Her voice was distinctive, just resonant, just unusually mature for such a young person. This teacher said, you actually might want to go to classical training. It was only four years ago that African American singer Marian Anderson had performed for an audience of 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial. So it wasn't outer limits that an operatic training might lead to a career. Odetta began studying and practicing with a seriousness that surprised even her instructors. Classical music became her discipline. She practiced relentlessly. She learned breath control, phrasing and emotional precision, projection of feeling that would later make her folk singing so distinctive, so interesting that people point to this. She had a background of classical music before she ever started folk music. She joined choirs and theater ensembles. She performed in school productions, in her Glee club and community events. So she's practicing her craft and practicing her craft, if you know what I.

[Becca]

Mean, paying for these lessons. Of course, they really had to scrape their bills. And unfortunately, Zadok's condition worsened and he needed to be hospitalized. So they were down a whole other income at this point. A lot of the extended family from Alabama had also moved into this neighborhood. So not only was there community, but there was family, community too. So they were helping out to a degree as much as they could because they were struggling, too. Her musical education is becoming part of her person, but she's a teenage girl, so she has a personal life. And those Glee clubs you just talked about, she would not go in the yearbook pictures because she just was uncomfortable with how she looked. She did not want to be captured on film. On her first day of middle school, Odetta met Jo Mapes. What Jo said later was, I was pimply, fat, shy and white. She was pimply, fat, shy and black. We hit it off immediately. That is an honest friendship. So it was a good thing Joe had Odetta and Odetta had Joe, because Odetta would need a best friend when, at the age of just 15, her Papa Zadok died of tuberculosis. Now, Jo's family life was pretty rough, so she spent a lot of time at the Felius house. Flora did what she could for her, even though she had two daughters of her own to feed and paying for the music lessons for Odetta.

[Susan]

Mama was working as a housekeeper for the Turnabout Theater in Hollywood, which was a popular Los Angeles club. I am cracking up. Featuring puppetry, I know and musical theater, which I can get. So she used her entry. I mean, you know, the back door. I know a guy to get Odetta in as a performer. And while she was there, one of the owners of the Turnabout ended up sponsoring voice lessons with a famous contralto named Janet Spencer, who looks, by the way, like every Gilded Age heiress ever. She looks like she could be friends with Jenny Jerome. We're going to link to some of her. She's all over YouTube if you want to hear what she sounded like. I mean, Odette is there, but so is Janet Spencer, who I had never heard of before. Odetta would perform at the Turnabout frequently during the following years. Odetta graduated from Belmont High School and worked in a department store and a button factory while taking music classes at Los Angeles City College. During the summers, Odetta sometimes worked as a counselor at an all white girls camp. And it was there she made a radical decision. So on this show, like Susan said earlier, we have, in several episodes, talked about hot combs, straightened hair, Madam C.J. walker's products, and how much pressure there was in the United States for women of color to straighten their hair to fit in with the white standards of beauty. A lot of pressure there. But one day, Odetta came back into the cabin and asked her campers, all white girls, to cut her hair. Her straightened hair, please cut it off. And they kept cutting and cutting the length off. Go further.

[Becca]

Let's.

[Susan]

Let's have it this short. They were stressing out, and she made them do it. Listeners of this show would know that my own grandmother, whose father wouldn't let her get a bob, pressured her friend to cut her hair off, too. It must be a thing like, why not do it yourself? I don't know. But she, she made him do it. She emerged from the shower a new woman, one with short, natural hair. And her hair really was a statement of who she was no longer willing to pretend to be. She was beginning to find out who she was. By her late teens. She was technically very accomplished, but she was also super restless. So she had the voice of an opera singer, but not the spirit of one. So she wrote, I had swallowed this whole pill that society had given us, that if it was classical and from Europe, it was legitimate. But there were realizations of her growing discontent.

[Becca]

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[Susan]

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[Becca]

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[Susan]

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[Becca]

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[Susan]

By 1949, when she was 19, when opera companies in America would still not let African American singers on their stages for contrast, Marianne Anderson, we talked about her before wouldn't break the color barrier at the Metropolitan Opera for six more years. So not even her, famous as she was, could be on the stage. Odetta had to take another path.

[Becca]

She opened herself up to other opportunities and answered an open casting call for a production of a musical called Finian's Rainbow. To us, now it's old. To them, it was only like three years old. It was, you know, it was something brand new.

[Susan]

Oh, this show. I don't know about this show. You know, I'm steeped in musical theater from a young age because my parents were in it in the pit, in the orchestra pit. Except for Showboat, which maybe I'll tell you that story someday. So this show, though, Finian's Rainbow, the racist main character, a senator, is cursed by a magical pot of gold and turns into a black man, forcing him to experience the prejudice that he was once inflicting. It reminds me of maybe Trading Places. Do you remember that movie from Eddie Murphy?

[Becca]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Susan]

These prejudice, rich guys kind of elevated a poor man to a position of power.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Susan]

Because he was a black man and they thought that would be funny. I don't know, it kind of reminds me of like, does any of this hold up is the question. Yeah, I just don't know. Regardless of the value of the show itself, it played a critical role in the evolution of folk music in America. Because during the show's four month run in San Francisco, this is the touring company, not the Broadway company, Odetta encountered the world of American folk music. It's the coffee house music scene. Young musicians were rediscovering traditional songs and reshaping them for a new era. And something clicked. Something clicked. These were songs of workers and wanderers and prisoners and victims, the dispossessed. They carried the weight of history and the message of survival. And she wrote, for the first time in my life, I heard the music of the people I come from. And hearing this music made me feel proud. I straightened my back and I kinked my hair. And from that point on, I was determined to learn all there was to learn. Not just about my black heritage, but about my American heritage. The folk music hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the honesty that I'd been missing in my music.

[Becca]

Her best friend, Jo, from middle school, she was the one who introduced Odetta to this music. She was living this really bohemian, artsy life in San Francisco. And when Odetta was performing there, the two of them went out. And that's when Odetta was exposed to this folk music.

[Susan]

Odetta Learned to play the guitar and began singing work songs and chain gain songs. Music that was raw and deeply tied to lived experience. You know, she began to sing them at the cities coffee houses. She said with these work zones, I could get my anger out without saying, I hate you, you hate me, right? Yeah.

[Becca]

Well, she was working at the same time, obviously she's just learning this craft, just like, you know, starting a podcast, you know, get paid, you just do it. And she really considered it at first a hobby, just something she was just fascinated by. We all have those. And she just threw herself into it and very well at that. In this folk music, she began to see a pattern forming, a history in the history of black people in America. And I think you kind of alluded to that before. This is what's touching her core. She's connecting with this music on a deeply personal level. So she's seeing her history in these songs. She's really realized that she is a progressive thinker. As a matter of fact, one of her first performances was for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, an event for them that she sang her folk songs. Yeah, this probably doesn't go in here, but I thought of you so, so hard. Here's a convergence kind of of your interest. There was a white couple she met while going to these events called Seema and Jake Weatherwax.

[Susan]

That's a Terry Pratchett reference, in case anybody's wondering. A main character, my. One of my favorite characters is named Granny Weatherwax. Right.

[Becca]

There's no relation between Granny and Seema and Jake. Every step of the way in her life, she's meeting people that are growing her inside and growing her community. And Seema and Jake were two of those people. They were talking left leaning politics and she was getting an education there. There was also a singer that she met. He was a singer, he was an actor, he was a former football player named Paul Robeson. And he also was. Was presenting this world that she had just never seen before. When she was in la, she said Paul Robeson was the one that politicized me through his works and his words. I found that it was necessary for me to be responsible to my brothers and sisters around the world.

[Susan]

Within a short amount of time. Odetta made her first professional appearance as a folk singer at the legendary Hungry Eye Club in San Francisco. She made $25 a night. And the story of how she got there reminds me so of the Lady Gaga Star is Born. There are other iterations. I'm just referring to the Lady Gaga star is Born, where the friend puts forth his talented best friend to the famous person, and the famous person gives them a tryout. That's kind of what happened to Odetta.

[Becca]

And in this situation, it was her best friend, Jo again. They were at a club, and Jo went off to the air quote bathroom and found the owner of the club and said, you know, you have a very famous folk singer sitting right here. You should get her on stage. And the guy fell for it. And so she's like, okay, I guess I'm going to go on stage. Because when you're a performer and they ask you to perform, you just do it.

[Susan]

Right, right. And people were not ready for what she brought, really. Her voice was trained, as we have talked about in classical perfection in technique, but underneath the foundation was spirituality, was unlike anything that the folk audience had ever heard. She didn't just sing these songs, she lived them. She treated these songs with the seriousness one might give to opera, the dignity, the gravitas. And audiences were transfixed. They could not get enough. By 1953, she was 23. She was a headliner at prominent clubs on the West Coast, Chicago and New York, and had recorded her first album, Live at the Tin Angel. Odetta was beginning to be kind of a lighthouse for the folk world. She performed in clubs all across the country. She developed a reputation for being able to command a room. She had it, whatever it was. She walked on stage and took control of the ambiance. She sang blues, she sang traditional ballads, both American and European work songs, spirituals. All served up with her powerful voice and her passion, that she was transmitting the meaning of what the song creators had gone through to the audience.

[Becca]

It was at one of those clubs, she was performing under the name Odetta Felius, because that was her legal given name. Her stepfather had adopted her, and the owner was like, look, that's a mouthful. No one's ever gonna A, spell it right, B, say it right. Just drop the Filius. Just be Odetta.

[Susan]

Amazing. Iconic.

[Becca]

Yes. And also at those clubs she's meeting. The people she's meeting are just blowing my mind. Harry Belafonte, you know, she's performing at the same club just a little bit before. Maya Angelou performed that at the Tin angel in San Francisco. So she meets her and they become friends. Because you know what? That tells me so much about her, that these people who meet a lot of people and can pick their friends from a wide pool are becoming friends with her. Fast, fast friends that says, look. Yeah.

[Susan]

When she was 26, she released an album called Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, A record that would influence a generation. I would like to give you a quote from no less of a luminary than Bob Dylan. He said this album, her album when she was 26, was one of the reasons he became a musician. And I quote, Mr. Bob Dylan. The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta. I heard a record of hers, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, in a record store. Back when you could listen to records right there in the store. Right then and there, I went out and traded my electric guitar and amplifier for an acoustical guitar, a flat top Gibson. That album was just something vital and personal. I learned all the songs on that record.

[Becca]

Like, did you ever. Have you seen the movie, the Bob Dylan movie with Timothy Chalmette? Chalamet. I don't know how to pronounce. I had watched it a little bit ago. And he does play the acoustic guitar. And then at the end, it's a biopic.

[Susan]

A biopic.

[Becca]

When he goes back to an electric guitar is when his career starts to wane. There's just this obvious digression in his career because he gave up that guitar that he had learned from Odetta.

[Susan]

You know what? Harry Belafonte, even though he was already famous, said, and I quote, odetta was a key influence on my musical career.

[Becca]

You know what? I added Harry Belafonte to our list of roosters that we always threatened to start covering. I think he would be great.

[Susan]

He would be great. He surprised me the first time because I didn't know anything about him. All I knew about him was his appearances on TV in the 70s, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't know that he was such a serious activist.

[Becca]

Yes. Yeah. That's what I love. I mean, if he found something that he was passionate about, he just followed it. Yeah. Speaking of following things that are passionate, because Odetta is having such a connection to this music, she wants to explain that to her audience, but what she does is not a lecture or a sermon when she's talking between songs. You know how artists talk about things. And a lot of times they may present their political opinions or whatever as it relates to the song that they're about to sing. What Odetta was doing was giving a history lesson up on stage. And she's giving the progression of black people in America as a history lesson and not as a sermon. She trusted her audiences to be smart enough to listen to what she was saying without her having to say, you know, a specific sentence. Does that make sense?

[Susan]

It totally Makes sense. She wrote, this is the music that turned my life around. And I feel a need to continue that music so more and more people can hear it. I am an ancestor worshiper and a historian. They need to hear messages from those who have gone before us, hear how our ancestors got us through to better positions than they were in.

[Becca]

Another thing about her performances is that she had this kind of acting background and she was transformative. She wasn't ever in prison, but when she's singing a prison song, she becomes that prisoner. And audiences are seeing her doing that.

[Susan]

Almost inevitably, there were detractors, and I'm sorry to say most of them focused on her physical appearance, her size. She was tall and broad and commanding. Her natural hair, which still blew people's minds that the hair literally growing out of her actual head was controversial. Often this drew commentary more than her artistry. Critics sometimes paid as much attention to her looks as to her voice. Even if the criticism was accolades, they had inevitably to mention her appearance.

[Becca]

Yes, it's like a. But, you know, when you give an apology, you never say, but. There's a button there. And they start talking about her appearance. If you just focus on what they're saying about her music. The critics love her. They are seeing this talent in her. They are watching her progress and smooth out her act. They can see that, and they can see audiences reacting to that. So all of the reviews of her were glowing, except for that. But it's crazy to me, like a lot of performers, she's looking at other avenues that she might go to. She makes an appearance in a documentary for. There was a whole series. I fell down a hole. I'm sorry. But they're called the Cinerama movies. There were seven of them made, but they were shown on a curved screen and there were three levels of film. So it was kind of a 3D effect. And she was in one scene in a travelogue that I watched the whole thing of because I loved it so much.

[Susan]

It was almost like the movies had this equipment and needed to film things. Like, there was a lot of sweeping scenery and the whole, like, that movie is kind of cock Mamie. I guess, like so and so couple is from Europe and traveling in America. This is what they see. It was just interesting to me.

[Becca]

I know I loved it. I would have been at that movie. I love the campiness of it over time. But if had I lived at that time, I would have been like, ooh, Cinerama movie, let's go. And she's going to the small screen. She made her first small screen appearance on the Today show, and she sang a song that the producers were going through her songbook, and they're like, no, this won't do. This is too political. This is too political. And they settle on a song called the Fox, which is just kind of this cute little cartoony type song. Like, you imagine a cartoon fox in your head. It's very innocent. There's no political message about it at all.

[Susan]

Like a lot of folk songs. I'm not gonna speak specifically to the fox necessarily, but a lot of folk songs. The maypole is not a maypole, if you know what I mean. I know Give me some sugar is not sugar that comes in a bag type of thing. So I would be very interested to dig in a little bit to the fox. Innocent song to sing to see if there's a whole bunch of the audience that are like, he. I can't believe that the censors. Too bad the Internet wasn't around, because we'd already know.

[Becca]

I know. That's what I love about the Internet. They get stuff I miss. Like that Bad Bunny show. I like. I saw a lot, but, you know, I missed, obviously, because I'm not Puerto Rican. I missed a lot. So it was great to get educated on that in the last few days.

[Susan]

You know, I saw a little. Of course, you know, you don't see all the angles of everything either. And, like, what people's attentions were caught by. There was a point at which a small child fell asleep on a row of chairs.

[Becca]

Aw.

[Susan]

And of course, everybody's like, oh, the party's going on, and all the children sleep on the chairs. That's real.

[Becca]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Susan]

And it was really cute. Like, even those little details, which everything is happening everywhere, and then off to the side. That is happening. And it's very nice. It's very nice.

[Becca]

No, I loved the show, and I loved the aftermath of it, the discussions that happened. Brian didn't see how it was set up, so he's watching it, and at the end, and then they go to a commercial and they come back and the field is cleared, and. And he's like, how did they get that cleared so fast? And I'm like, all that grass was people. Those were people. That was a costume. And then the next day, all these people are, like, happy to say I was grass number seven or whatever.

[Susan]

I love that. All the people peeking out of their.

[Becca]

Grass and they all had to have a marching band experience.

[Susan]

You know, I bet my dad loved that.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Susan]

I'm sorry.

[Becca]

Odetta her next appearance on a small screen was on a CBS Saturday morning special. It was about her. It's called Odetta Sings. It was a great opportunity to showcase her to audiences all over America. However, it was Saturday morning and no one was watching television, so the viewership was pretty small.

[Susan]

When she was 39, Harry Belafonte featured her on Tonight With Belafonte, a major special on CBS tonight, I. E. The Night that effectively introduced her to a national audience.

[Becca]

And he had gotten a sizable budget from both CBS and the sponsor, which was Revlon. And he was given complete control. When Revlon people or CBS people are like, we never heard of Odetta. You know, who is she? What does she look like? And he said, she's a Nubian queen. She's the mother of history of all of Africa. Her beauty reigns as supreme. And then he also told them she's not going to need any makeup.

[Susan]

Sponsored by Revlon.

[Becca]

Their hands were tied. So that's how big of a star Harry Belafonte is, is that he can get away with this kind of thing.

[Susan]

Well, and does Revlon have anything in the range that she could wear? I'm going to tell you, I don't think Revlon was ready. Although I do want to give them credit. They were the first major cosmetic company to feature an African American model in their advertising, Naomi Sims in 1970. But I don't know how that worked because as far as I can tell, they did not come out with a line of foundations suitable African American toned skin until the mid-1970s. But this had no bearing on the glorious performances of Harry Belafonte and Odetta on his show.

[Becca]

No. Mm, mm. Nope. And fortunately, we can see their performances after this performance. Typically, the critics loved her performance, her voice, her uniqueness. And United Press International said of Odetta today, this woman must be regarded as a star.

[Susan]

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[Becca]

Her career is going well and her personal life is also going well. When she was 28, she married a man named Dan Don Danny. You will see all three of those. We can't come up with a cons census. He must have gone by L3 question mark. I don't know. I'm just going to call him Dan. She married a man named Dan Gordon. They had only dated for several months. They had to wait until his divorce from his previous wife was finalized before they got married. He was a New Yorker born and raised, just a couple years older than Odetta. And as far as a career goes, it looks like he was a fairly unsuccessful artist before he met her. They headed off to Chicago and got married in May of 1959.

[Susan]

Afterward, they started a company called Dandetta Productions and they hoped to begin managing singers and producing movies. But I'm sorry to say the project, for whatever reason, did not. It was not as a commercial success. Let's just say the marriage really fell apart relatively quickly due to the pressures of her career mismatch. You know, they hadn't known each other very long. Whatever it was, they lived apart most of the time. This marriage wasn't officially over for about six years, but it limped along for a while.

[Becca]

Yeah, she has so many dips and mountains in her career. We obviously can't go over all of them. For instance, why did they set up their own management company? Because she was having problems finding managers that believed in her and would put her career on the right path.

[Susan]

She did have financial struggles in the background. And just like a lot of people in the music industry at this time, the record companies were siphoning the profits. You could be the most powerful musical artist in the world, people swooning at your feet or whatever, but you were eking out a living a lot of times because the contract you had signed was not favorable to your interests.

[Becca]

In Odetta's case, also, she was not getting radio time, and that was huge at the time. Radio stations took payments from record labels for the music that they were going to play, and hers were not making those payments. So she wasn't heard by most people. She was, however, finding other ways to be put in front of people. For instance, there is a singer, maybe you've heard of him, Tennessee Ernie Ford. He was a folk singer, a country, twangy folk singer. He hosted a television show called the Ford show because it was sponsored by Ford Motor Company, Also because his name is Ford. Clever, right? He had invited her to come onto his show. Now, that doesn't sound like anything to us, but there is a color barrier that she crashes through here. Tennessee Ernie Ford not only had her on a show, which wasn't unusual to have black performers on the shows of white performers. What was unusual was for them to perform together. And when Odetta finished her solo, Tennessee Ernie Ford went up to her, grabbed her hand and held it up like, oh, I just love you so much. Let's go sing together. And they go sit down next to each other and they sing this really cool duet. It was like a medley of songs that they sang together. Audiences were like, whoa, what's going on? We don't usually see black and white performers together. It's just not done. So she was able to overcome this color barrier in one tiny regard. But very popular show put her in living rooms of millions of people across America.

[Susan]

By the time she was 31, she had played Carnegie Hall. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. I just had to say it. I'm not even a dad. And that dad joke had to come out. She also appeared twice at the Renowned Newport Folk Festival. That December, the year she was 31, she was part of an American Society of African Culture delegation that included people that you would know. Nina Simone, Langston Hughes, Lionel hampton. There were 38 performers in total that went to perform at a two day music festival in Lagos, Nigeria. It coincided with the first anniversary of Nigerian independence and it was an exchange program, theoretically, for African and African American artists. And I would like to tell you it was a resounding success. But it was not. It was not. The Americans came in like bulls in a china shop. Not the artist's fault. The producers provided a lot of photo ops, all of which seemed pretty paternalistic, like, look at these backwards Nigerians, we've got to help them type of thing. Not unreasonably, the Nigerians did not love this at all.

[Becca]

Shock.

[Susan]

The severest attack came from the actual Lagos newspaper, the Lagos Times. Stop faking African culture. The person that got the most at it maybe was Nina Simone. She was so impressed when she got there herself. That is when she began dressing in a more, quote, traditional African way and changed her appearance quite a bit after that, after that trip, you'll see her in photos of the trip with her straightened hair. Her very societally acceptable. And that's in quotes, hair. And then when she came back, she was more herself. So that was her defining moment of realization. That's probably the main good thing that came out of that trip.

[Becca]

Yeah. As far as Odette is concerned, she didn't get out to see any of Africa on this trip. She would have liked to, but she just. It just didn't happen.

[Susan]

I just. This whole thing almost seemed like more of a PR stunt than an actual exchange of.

[Becca]

Yes, yes. In the bigger world at this point, folk music, it's hitting kind of a crossover stride. It is at a peak in the 60s. You know, we all have heard of Peter, Paul and Mary, and they were kind of a crossover folk pop band. And so they were a good intro to folk music for a lot of people. So I can see why the record companies would want to, you know, capitalize on that and do something like that trip.

[Susan]

As the Civil Rights movement started to gain momentum, at last, Odetta's music found its purpose. As early as 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. Actually called her the Queen of American folk music. Rosa Parks was asked by her biographer what songs she had listened to during the civil rights movement, and she said, all the songs Odetta sings. Before too long, Odetta became known as the voice of the civil rights movement. She performed at Marches and rallies and fundraisers. They were not just entertainment. We know her motivation. They were acts of solidarity. They were propping up the movement. They were encouraging feelings and actions. They weren't just background music.

[Becca]

One of those big marches that she participated in at the request of Martin Luther King, Jr. Was the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. At the very least, we know it as where he gives the I have a Dream speech. At the time, and for quite some time, it was the largest march on Washington in history. It attracted, depending on your source, 250 to nearly 300,000 people.

[Susan]

And while the full set of some other artists who performed that day, including Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, both of whom had cited her as an influence, by the way, we have all those. All the sets, they exist in full. The only audio footage that exists of Odetta's performance is less than a minute of a song called I'm On My Way. And she wrote, when I got up to sing, I think all the film crew went to lunch because all the camera lights that were red before I got on went out. You know, that kind of hurts. So even here, even here, she is not treated well.

[Becca]

No. She also said, it was the greatest day of my life. For the first time in my life, I wasn't a performer working before an audience separated from it. I was part of it, and it was part of me. Which tells me that we missed a lot by them not filming her performance.

[Susan]

There's a video, it's in the Smithsonian archives, and we will put it either on our Pinterest or on our website. And it is video of the marchers approaching, of the buses pulling up. And over the top of that is that minute of her singing this song, I'm On My Way. So somebody saw the injustice and rectified it by using that as the soundtrack for the archival footage. Well, that same year, she appeared with President Kennedy on the Civil Rights Television special Dinner with the President. Yes. And in 1965, so she's 35, Odetta returned to Alabama to sing for the people that were marching from Selma to Montgomery. In the 2014 film Selma, which covers this march, they use an Odetta song in the soundtrack to great effect. It's actually a song that Bob Dylan first recorded called Masters of War. Here's a couple of the verses from that song. You can feel in the tone. There is anger and frustration. Let me ask you one question. Is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness? Do you think that it could? I think you will find when your death Takes its toll. All the money you made will never buy back your soul.

[Becca]

You absolutely have to leave that in.

[Susan]

Okay, but here's another verse, and you might take this one out. And I hope that you die and your death will come soon all follow your casket by the pale afternoon and I'll watch while you're lowered down to your deathbed I'll stand over your grave Till I'm sure that you're dead.

[Becca]

Yikes.

[Susan]

Wow.

[Becca]

That is powerful.

[Susan]

That's powerful.

[Becca]

In that Selma march, Odette actually did march one day of it of the four. But she was really there to perform for the marchers. You know, when they stopped and rested for the evening, they had performances by entertainers. If you know your history. The first MARTA in Selma ended in a violent clash between peaceful protesters and armed police. The 600 marchers were just crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge when the state police attacked them. This second march was to finish the work that wasn't done on the first march. So she's participating in this. And while the march went fairly calmly at the end, all of the marchers, especially those of color, were instructed to get out of town as quickly as possible. And people had come from other parts of the country to help shuttle people out of the city. There's a white woman from Detroit who had driven down from Detroit to Alabama just for this one purpose, to shuttle people. This woman was going out of the city. She was met by four Ku Klux Klan members while in her car. They shot her. She died. And almost immediately, the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, began a slander campaign against her. They were saying that she had abandoned her kids, she was a drug addict. They were trying to deflect from the fact this white woman had died in the Jim Crow South. Odetta had the opportunity to get into this woman's car, and she didn't. But she possibly could have been in that car, and she wasn't.

[Susan]

One of those times that history could have gone such a different way. Speaking of Alabama, Odetta was given the key to the city of Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Albert Boatwell, in October 1965, following a performance she gave at the Municipal Auditorium. And she. She said, well, the key's in this little bitty box, a cute little key. I thanked the man and shook his hand, but he forgot to tell me which door it opened. That was the early stages of desegregation. So was it for her support for the civil rights movement? This key, was it in recognition of her musical achievements? Like, why did I get a key? I mean, that's where she was born. Birmingham.

[Becca]

Yeah. Daughter of the city. Sure.

[Susan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Becca]

In that particular show, it was a huge disappointment. That stadium held like, I don't know, 5,000 people, and maybe a thousand showed up because it was the same day, the same time as an Ole Miss Alabama football game. And that got everybody's eyeballs and everybody's seats in bleachers and not in the auditorium. She's still a smaller crowd. I mean, it's a fifth of the auditorium is full, and she's still getting the crowd riled up and singing and cheering and just performing, just like she's been doing everywhere else. Now at this time, it's not just these big things she's doing. She's still playing colleges, she's recording albums. She went on an extensive tour in Europe. Europeans loved her far more, I think, than Americans. They were so excited that she came and visited. And one of the places that she also got to visit was Africa. And this is the time where she got to see some of the country. This is the time where she got to see herself in the people in this country. And this is the time that when she comes back, she starts to adapt African elements of clothing to her appearance because she relates so deeply with her African roots.

[Susan]

Having seen how other countries operated, Odeda came back to this country with yet another new perspective on her beloved home country. She wrote, we in this country are terribly confused. I'm not sure we know exactly how we're confused, but there's something amiss with millions of dollars being shipped into other countries to kill civilians, and then there's not enough money to continue providing medicine for the elderly who've worked all their lives and contributed to this country's welfare and should be receiving dividends or for working people or their children. There's a lot of stuff that just doesn't compute. And I think people need to be soothed by knowing they're not the only ones feeling like there's something wrong. The words to traditional folk songs were written out of concern, and there's as much to be concerned about now as there ever was.

[Becca]

In the past couple of years, I've given many Blissey pillowcases as gifts, but I haven't bought any new ones for myself. Why? Because they're wearing really well. I throw em in the washer, throw em in the dryer, put em back on my bed. But I thought, you know what, Susan? Let's spruce things up in your bedroom a little bit. Let's get another couple of pillowcases. There are so Many new colors since the last time I've ordered them. Hmm. There's a color or pattern that will match any decor for adults or children. I picked some blue ones, but they have like a stripe in them. I really love em. I'm like, why didn't I get these before? And I put em in the washer and the dryer and my husband was folding laundry and. And he said, wow, these are really soft. There you go. Endorsement from Ryan Vollenweiter. And he didn't even know that these pillowcases could help with anti aging hydration and that they keep my curly hair curly and not frizzy.

[Susan]

Silk is natural, unlike satin. It reduces frizz, it reduces breakage, it reduces fine lines and wrinkles.

[Becca]

And these are pure silk, 100% pure mulberry silk. And of course, they are a practical gift as I've given them before. And I was reminded when my pillowcases came in because they come in such nice boxes for wrapping and gifting. It's a great gift. It's easy done.

[Susan]

So try the pillowcase that helps with anti aging and hydration. Because you're a listener. Blissey is offering 60 nights risk free, plus an additional 30% off when you shop at blissey.com historychick com.

[Becca]

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[Susan]

Your skin and hair will thank you. The same year that she was given a key to Birmingham, Alabama, she recorded one of her most famous albums, Odetta Sings Dylan. An entire album of her covering Bob Dylan's famous songs. He had come to the studio at RCA when they were recording, and she said, recording is frightening to her. You know, there's like a lot of people looking at you. And we've been in this situation. People are operating their dials, they're focused on their responsibilities. And you are like, am I doing the right thing?

[Becca]

I'm not getting any feedback. Yeah, yeah.

[Susan]

So he came in and he heard a couple of things, like a couple of words she said that he didn't think were quite right. And so he stopped the whole thing. Like, we need to change this. We need to correct this. And she finally had to lay down the law and take off her studio monitor headphones and come in there and say, look, you're gonna have to leave. I am so nervous. She said, you're gonna have to leave. I'm so nervous of this microphone and the tape picking up every mistake. I Don't need the composer here too, saying, I didn't mean it like that. And she said he understood. He laughed and then he left. And, you know, they met a little bit later. They were kind of talking at a friend's house. And he was wondering why people did his songs other than the way he had meant them to be. And she actually laid down the law for him. You know what? Someone hears your song, your song goes into what their life is, right? Like, you can't take your experience out of how you sing a song. And you don't do a song the same way twice. Bob True. She's like, if you, you know, you are a different person every time you sing it because of experiences you've had between the last time you sing it and this time. So you can't expect other people to sing the song with experience the same way that you do. And it kind of like blew his mind a little bit. Like, okay, he understood.

[Becca]

You know, that actually translates to current day creators. Because as a writer, I always knew that what I thought of when I was writing something may not be how it hits when someone's reading it. And to never try to explain it, because what's the point? You took it the way you took it and it means that to you. Exactly the same thing Odetta was saying.

[Susan]

What is put out there might not be what the listener takes in.

[Becca]

Exactly. That's it.

[Susan]

And you're not. And Odetta knew this. You're not in charge of that. Once you let it free, it becomes what it becomes.

[Becca]

You just release it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

[Susan]

Something he was not. So what's the word sanguine about is. Yeah. Ten points for Ravenclaw. So Elvis himself actually and openly in his biography preferred.

[Becca]

I'm gonna.

[Susan]

I'm so sorry. Bob Dylan preferred. Preferred Odetta's versions of Bob Dylan's songs. The meaning that she put in it resonated more with what he chose to interpret the songs as. So, I mean, it's no slap. Although he did say Bob Dylan was too gravelly. So that was it. That was an insult. But otherwise, though, it was no shame. I just thought that was kind of interesting that another major artist regarded both of them as influences.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah. There's so many. I mean, we can't get them all. There's so many artists that list her. I know that there's a lot of people listening right now that had never heard of her before, which is fine, right? That's great. That's why we're here at this point in her Life. It's kind of like her eff it years. Like she's saying what's on her mind. Her whole attitude is kind of changing and becoming a lot more chill. And even on stage she was seemed to be having a lot more fun, a lot more playfulness to her performances. She said, there's been a change, a coming out of the cocoon. Like, I've always loved to dance, but I was always self conscious of size. So right now she's like busting moves. Not only on stage. I mean, not like, you know, she's no Janet Jackson or anything, but I'll put a video up. She's kind of like moonwalking later in her career.

[Susan]

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[Becca]

But she's like going to clubs and discos. This is the 70s. She's just really enjoying life at this point. And speaking of her life, she never had any biological children. She had godchildren, and she also had people who were much younger than her that she kind of adopted and called her children. Two, specifically. One was a teenage boy named Leonard. He went by Boots, Boots Jaffe. He was from New York. He was a white kid. And they just connected. And she considered him kind of her son. Even though he had parents who loved him and understood what she was saying. He was her son. Later on in life, she's going to pick up a daughter named Michelle Ezric. And again, neither of these are legal adoptions, but they're adoptions of the heart.

[Susan]

So those were official. Quasi official. Like she knew she adopted them. But many of her songs themselves went out to become folk music classics. Taught in schools, covered by innumerable artists, sung at civil rights gatherings all over the world. They started to appear in movies and TV series and commercials. And so her brainchildren, her songs, her folk music, and the stories that laid behind the folk music became kind of a integral part of American culture. I have to tell you, I definitely remember learning this little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine.

[Becca]

Really?

[Susan]

I don't think they were in elementary school.

[Becca]

They were not teaching that in Connecticut. Interesting.

[Susan]

Well, I also think Blackbird singing in the Dead of Night, the Beatles song, we learned that too. Did I go to a hippie school? I don't know. Well, we also learned how to do the Hustle. Speaking of the 70s. So was that standard? I know everyone's like, you didn't learn to square dance? I was like, nope. Unfortunately, we were doing the Hustle in that, that mobile classroom in the. Oh, yeah, right. Anyway, I'd be Interested to know if you learned like the ones that are called out are Glory, Glory, oh, Freedom, this Little Light of Mine, and Hit or Miss are the four that kind of seem to have made it into the elementary school playbook. I'm very interested to know if you also learned that. I do want to clarify that she did not write this Little Light of Mine like a lot of her songs. She got them from the archives. They were passed from musician to musician. This Little Light of Mine actually is like a gospel kids song from the 1920s. And the inspiration for it comes from Matthew in the Bible, and I quote, you are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. So that's where that song comes from. Not for nothing, Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night was inspired in part by the American Civil Rights movement. So you never know where inspiration will strike you. I'm sorry to say I have literally no idea where the Hustle came from. Odetta also used her platform to raise money for causes that she believed in. Specifically, I want to call out the Folk Music Archives at the Library of Congress. That is where America preserves their most important cultural documents. And she saw this as essential. These, perhaps, were the more oppressed, less elevated people who deserve to be represented in the archives.

[Becca]

She was still touring. Occasionally she went on tour in Australia, a place she had been to before. It was at this point that she met a man named Gary Sheed. He was much younger than her, 23. She's in her 40s at this point. They did get engaged, but they never technically got married. So if you see that in any bios of her, I can understand how it looked like they got married because they were always together. And, you know, he came to the United States and they looked like they were married, but they weren't technically married. There was also another man a few years ahead. It's a blues singer named Iverson Minter who went by the name of Louisiana Red. He sounds like a really good guy, but just kind of country guy. And she was more city person, I guess. And that can work sometimes, but in this case it didn't. The relationship lasted for a couple years. She did introduce him as her husband, so that's probably how that filtered down into accounts of her life. But they Were not technically married, and the relationship faded and they parted ways and without actually having to go through a divorce.

[Susan]

Throughout the 70s and then into the 1980s, she continued to record and also to go on tour. And she began expanding her. I don't know if it's like her repertoire exactly, but she expanded her influence in her songs. She started to include jazz and more of a blues element. And also contemporary songs crept in, too. So as she continues to work on her music, other influences are creeping in.

[Becca]

I kind of love that she didn't find a sound and stick with it her whole life. She kept experimenting.

[Susan]

She also said that when she shows up at a concert, her choice of material depends on. She called it my perception of the audience. She evaluates who she's got and then adapts her performance. And that, a lot of times, is why she preferred solo performances, because you didn't have to have. Nobody was depending on you, and you could just change on the fly. She once said, if I can't think of an accompaniment to a song, or if I can't pull it off, I'll just sing it acapella, which means without accompaniment, you know, she'll just sing it out loud. The song itself, if she feels like that's the song that's gonna work in the environment.

[Becca]

I think the first song I heard of hers, she was singing it just with a beat on her guitar. Not like a strum, like her hand hitting the guitar. And she said it was like a hammer. To think of it as a hammer.

[Susan]

And that.

[Becca]

And that was the first. And I was like, I was sold. I've been. I've had Odetta songs playing as my soundtrack. I'm a huge fan at this point. And, like me, loving her style. There was a lot of people who did. She still was receiving a lot of critical success. You know, she'd come out with a new album, and the critics are like, this is amazing. She's a goddess. But it never translated to financial success for her. There was ebbs and flows in her finances, but she always had a problem. She had rented an apartment in New York City, and, you know, sometimes she had trouble making that rent things at this point in her life, she's doing solo shows, but it's smaller clubs. She's going on tour with other acts as the opening act. She's just not getting as much stage time as she had in the past. And she is kind of sinking a little bit into a depression during this time. She started to drink. She was still touring. She had a tour overseas and when she would step on a stage and say, Switzerland, they loved her. And another place that surprised me that absolutely were just crazy for her was the Soviet Union. They knew all her songs, even though they didn't speak the language.

[Susan]

She said of these trips, the traveling itself at times can get really tedious, but the getting there is the dessert. And the people you start working with, there are aware people within this area of music that have gone out further than the pat that's given to them on regular radio and television programs. And you meet families, kindred kinds of spirits. That's the joyous part.

[Becca]

It's so odd. She's still touring and she still has successes, but if you read about her life, it sounds like she is fading into the woodwork. For instance, she played the Concert for peace at St. John the Divine Church in New York City for 12 years running. On New Year's Eve, she's teaching college seminars. But I think this goes back to. There's no written history of her like there was of Bob Dylan or Joan Baez or Judy Collins or whoever. Peter, Paul and Mary. There's a lot of press on Peter, Paul and Mary, but she's getting critical acclaim, but in smaller publications. Those are the only people that are paying attention to her. But she was still living this very full life.

[Susan]

She did plenty of benefit work for social causes, environmental organizations. She wrote, I have to do that. I need to put something back into the pot. I need to be helpful and useful to those who are on the firing lines with their energies focusing on areas that will improve the lives of more people in this country. And, you know, I was thinking of her backgrounding, which is what you're talking about right now. Like, she's been pushed into the background a little bit. And, you know, her initial influences were the stories of those who had been backgrounded, the stories of those who had been operating in. Not secret, but just off the main stage. You know, the workers, the oppressed, the enslaved. And so how interesting that there is a parallel there, that she is doing all of this grand and great work. Valuable, but off stage a little bit.

[Becca]

Yeah, no, I. I love that there was a. One constant in her life and we kind of had to leave her in the past. But she's been there going along with Odetta. Not physically, but emotionally supportive. She had her own life, but that was her sister, Jimmy Lee. And in the mid-80s, Jimmy Lee moved to New York to be with Odetta. She did a lot of business things for her that Odetta just didn't like to do. And what she also provided was an emotional support person in Odetta's immediate life. And Odetta started to not drink as much when Jimmy Lee moved in. And she started to have this. It's her sister, you know, this best friend, sister relationship. And she had that in her life, in person, which she had not had before. Also in her life, there is a long story arc about her managers and not doing things for her. In the mid-80s, she finally got a manager who got her who wasn't out just to make money for himself. His name is Len Rosenfield, and he helped her have a career reawakening. I guess the things that her managers in the past just weren't doing, you know, booking her into really high profile places.

[Susan]

In her later years, probably due to this influence, she had a resurgence of fame and interest. She performed again at Carnegie Hall. She was collaborating with younger artists. She continued to tour. Her voice had gotten deep, a little bit gravelly. Yay, Bob Dylan. But she was called a powerful presence when she stood on stage, said a critic named Mr. Goldberg. When she stood on stage, she was like a gigantic oak tree. Big and stalwart and incredibly vested with power and authority.

[Becca]

She also. And I don't know if this is Len Rosenfield's to his credit, but she was part of a campaign for Bill Clinton in the early 90s, a group called the Clintones. They record. I mean, we're talking like Carly Simon, Leslie Gore, Judy Collins. Big names are in this group. And they recorded a record as a fundraiser for Bill Clinton. The Clintones, you know, remember.

[Susan]

Do you remember that he was so famous for playing the saxophone? Yeah. It was even in the opening song for Animaniacs, which, if you have not seen the Animaniacs cartoon, go look that up on YouTube. But, like, while Bill Clinton plays the sex, we're Animaniacs. It was like a big deal how into music he was. So that was perfectly appropriate, I think, for him.

[Becca]

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[Susan]

We're gonna jump around just a minute because I want to highlight some accomplishments as a recording artist. She was nominated for the best Folk Music Grammy Award three times for her albums Odetta Sings Folk Songs from the wayback machine in 1963, blues everywhere I go from 1999 and gonna let it shine as recently as 2005. During her career she acted in several films. The first is the one we mentioned before, Cinerama holiday from 1955. This is way back before she became internationally famous in 1961. In the movie Sanctuary she played a murderer, which is probably a spoiler alert, but it's from 1961. So there you go, kind of a main character, the main, I guess, bad guy, although her motives were good. And then in a movie starring Cicely Tyson called the autobiography of Ms. Jane Pittman. Ah, if you have not seen that movie, you should watch it. It's from 1974. Cicely Tyson plays a well over 100-year-old, formerly enslaved woman who's being interviewed about her life. And then you go back and see it all, where Odetta comes in. She plays a character called big Laura. And Ms. Jane Pittman is helping people run away from being enslaved. And Big Laura is a key character who entrusts her son to Ms. Jane because the patrollers are coming and ends up dying defending the others. That's a big deal. That was a major part in that movie. Also, Odetta received numerous honors, including in 1999, President Bill Clinton presented her with the National Medal of the Arts award.

[Becca]

That's very prestigious. That award came kind of on the heels of that Grammy nod for her Blues Everywhere album. So between these two things, she was really catapulted up in the awareness of people. She was getting the recognition that she had always wanted. So, of course, she had to go on tour. She was 69 years old and did a tour of 50 US cities. Then she did a small tour in Europe. Then the following year, she did another tour of 70 cities and recorded another album of her singing the blues.

[Susan]

If you think you're too busy today. That's right.

[Becca]

Wow. But she was loving it. This was a high point in her life, for sure.

[Susan]

Later in the year 2001, two days after 9 11, David Letterman asked Odetta to please become the first artist to perform on his show. When it came back to the airwaves, America, as you recall, if you were alive, was broken. Nobody quite knew what to do. Is it okay to enjoy things we didn't know? We didn't know what was going on. She came back backed by the Boys Choir of Harlem and performed this Little Light of Mine. She performed We Shall Overcome and she performed Amazing Grace.

[Becca]

Just watching it, she was joyful. She was dancing kind of. I mean, I'm not talking about big dancing, but just bopping, I guess, is a good way to put it. She just exuded hope and optimism and joy, which is what we all needed right then.

[Susan]

When she was 73, the Kennedy center honored her with its Visionary Award. There was a special tribute performance by Tracy Chapman. There are three folk singers Odetta thought were the finest folk singers that ever folk sang besides herself. Yeah. Which she didn't actually give herself any credit for. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Tracy Chapman. Think about that. If you are a relatively new artist and the hero of. Honestly, everyone says you're one of the three best in your field that has ever been in this world. Amazing.

[Becca]

Yep.

[Susan]

And then the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. honored her with its Living Legend Award in 2005.

[Becca]

I'm so glad that she's getting this recognition while she's alive, because a lot of times we just talk about it at the end. Unfortunately, around this time, she was hit with some very unpleasant situations. Her sister Jimmy Lee died first. Then she took a very bad fall and broke a hip. That fall landed her in a nursing home. It took her quite some time to rehabilitate, but she was still physically unable to walk very far distances and often used a wheelchair. Shortly after, she had gotten herself back together and on stage, she couldn't perform one night, which was very unusual for her. She just couldn't go on. And they took her to the hospital and she was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. It's a lung disease. I mean, for most people, it's like, oh, wow, I can't breathe. I guess I'm done with this career. But no, she got herself a portable oxygen tank, and then she went out and did a 60 city world tour. I mean, it took a village to get her from city to city. I'm not gonna lie. But she has spent the last 60 years of her life building that village, and they were happy to help her. Her daughter Michelle Ezric was there the whole time and helped her through this, this period. So she's on stage, going off stage to take hits off of the oxygen tank and rolling herself back on stage to perform. I'm blown away.

[Susan]

Her last television appearance was in 2008 on the Tavis Smiley show. And her very last concert performance was outdoors in San Francisco in front of an audience of 125,000 people. In the same year, 2008, she was scheduled to sing at Barack Obama's inauguration. Think about that moment for a woman that had worked so hard for civil rights, you know, half a century ago. But I'm sorry to say she did not live to see it.

[Becca]

She had always told people that she wanted to die on stage. And unfortunately, that's not what happened. Almost two months ahead of President Obama's inauguration in January of 2009, she was rushed to the hospital with severe organ failure. And odetta died on December 2, 2008 at the age of 77. Per her wishes, her body was cremated and her ashes were scattered in the Harlem Mirror. It's a lake in Central park in New York City. Two months later, there was a memorial service for her. It was a four hour service that ended in a sing along of this little light of mine and this land is your land, which she always wanted to be the national anthem. And I don't blame her.

[Susan]

Her death was mourned all over the world. Tributes poured in from those that had worked with her in civil rights, in the theater, in the movies. On all of her albums, audience members, people who had been moved by the songs she sang, incalculable amounts of influence that she had put forth in the world. We always talk about dropping a rock, and the ripples go out further than. Odetta's ripples are still going forward, even now.

[Becca]

In 2014, the Alvin Ailey dance troupe performed a show called Odetta to her Music. I wish she had been able to see that.

[Susan]

She was inducted into the Alabama Music hall of fame in 2018, and in 2021, her album, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

[Becca]

She's also honored at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. In 2023. I mean, these ripples are still going out. She was listed as number 71 in Rolling Stones Greatest Singers of All Time. That's impressive.

[Susan]

And the year after that, she was inducted into the Blues hall of Fame.

[Becca]

If you are in New York City, there is a memorial marker at the apartment building that she lived at at 1275th Avenue.

[Susan]

And there's not been a postage stamp.

[Becca]

That'S gotta be fixed. I mean, don't you love her so much? Somewhere in my notes, I wrote Susan's review. She's spectacular.

[Susan]

You know, for someone that was such an influence, for such a wide variety. And you know what? I didn't even know. Here I am in 1977 or 78, singing this little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine. Didn't know. Didn't know who Odetta was. Had no idea that that's how that percolated. You know, that reminds me of the Devil Wears Prada. Like, the people in this room have decided that this blue.

[Becca]

Right, Right.

[Susan]

You know, and here you are consuming that blue, not even knowing that we. We handled this for you. So, Odetta, thank you for handling that song for us so that we could learn about it when we were little kids. And that will bring to a close our coverage of the life of Odetta. And before we get into media, we do have one announcement.

[Becca]

We just wanted to let you know that there are still some spaces available for our fall trips this year in 2026, to the Loire Valley, August 23rd through the 31st, and to Italy, October 7th through the 14th. You'll need to go to Likeminds, Travel for more information and to register.

[Susan]

And now, as usual, it is time for media number one. Invaluable, Invaluable might be the only comprehensive biography of her out there. Odetta A Life in Music and Protest by Ian Zach.

[Becca]

It was only published in 2020, which seems like it was two years ago, but I guess it wasn't time. She is weird.

[Susan]

It was years and years too late, wasn't it? We should have had some biographies out about her a long time ago. So I'm glad that we do now. And in addition, I only really found one commercially published children's book also. Odetta the Queen of Folk by Stephen Alcorn.

[Becca]

Neither you nor I could find any more children's books. It's probably the only one out there. So what a wonderful subject to cover to introduce children to folk music, Music that they probably haven't listened to or.

[Susan]

That they have listened to, but don't realize the background of it, right?

[Becca]

Oh, yeah, for sure. If you don't have any history of folk music, there's many ways. But there is a book that I had gotten my hands on called Selling Folk An Illustrated History by Ronald D. Cohen and David Bonner. It's just a good overview book, I think.

[Susan]

And as to movies, okay, here I am. Here I am giving you another. Please take this. And we would like credit in. In your end credits, please, as creative assistance or something. There has been no biographical movie of Odetta. Why? Why?

[Becca]

I don't know. There's so many story arcs. So many.

[Susan]

There are so many story arcs. A lot of the draws are already there. We have famous musicians that will be there to bring you in. There's already a great soundtrack, for sure. Social drama, protest, small nightclubs full of smoke. There's all kinds of things. And so I'm sad to tell you that the two movies that I know of that talked about Bob Dylan, I'm not there from 2007, the one that was famous for having six people play Bob Dylan. Cate Blanchett was one of them. Heath Ledger was another one. So there you go. Famous, famous movie. As far as I know, Odetta was not a character nor mentioned nor in the credits. And then in the next movie, starring Timothee Chalamet, a complete unknown she's referred to. Somebody says, oh, excuse me, Odetta, I'm just going to the stage. Yeah, to a lady that's there that has no lines. So she's not even featured in Bob Dylan. Now, admittedly, they didn't hang out. Like, she wasn't always around. They you know, she went to his concert where he got in, in trouble for switching to electric.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah. And she was always at the Newport Folk Festival. They were in the same community of folk singers, so of course their paths crossed.

[Susan]

And there was a great visual of her trying to record her covers of his album and him in there with his pencil and eraser, like, no, no, this lyric's not right. Yeah, like, please get out of here, man. You know, so, you know, anyway, so there was like a swing and a miss on those. With regard to Odetta, I do think.

[Becca]

There'S a fascinating, fascinating YouTube channel which you know better than doom scrolling called the Visionary Project. The long title is the National Visionary Leadership Project. It's a series of interviews with African American elders who shaped the 20th century. And there's a series of interviews with Odetta just months after her sister Jimmy Lee died. And she looks and sounds wonderful and powerful and she talks about her life. Life.

[Susan]

Another video that I referred to Odetta singing I'm On My Way, which is the only snippet of her audio stylings we have from the march on Washington that is played over video of people arriving for the march. We'll give you a link to that. Also a review of her key album, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues from A Man Called a Green man review at the Smithsonian. We'll give you a link to their American folk music exhibit and coverage. If you want to know more, we kind of just blew right by it and there is a lot to it. If you would like to know more about that ill fated trip, the first one to Nigeria, we will link you to an entire expose, play by play, about that trip.

[Becca]

I don't have anything else.

[Susan]

And in closing, we would like to leave you with a quote from Maya Angelou. In the liner notes of the 1999 album Blues Everywhere I Go, Maya Angelou wrote, if only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and soul like Odetta's would come along. The centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we'd hardly recognize the time. One of my great blessings is to have known her for 50 years, to have been enriched by hearing that voice, to have been informed by knowing that soul. This great artist sings the drama and, yes, the comedy of this human journey. The stations we've arrived at tardily and the destinations we've missed entirely. Her mouth was full of the glory of our aspirations. Thank you, Odetta, for continuing to define and enlighten our load. Thanks for listening.

[Becca]

Bye.

[Susan]

If you liked what you heard today, please Tell a few friends about us or leave a review for us on your favorite podcatcher. Take a second, if you would, and look up Odetta on YouTube and listen to a couple of her songs. Join us, won't you? In Italy or in the castles of the Loire Valley. This is your year. Just go to likemindstravel.com for all the details. You can join us in the lounge, go to our Facebook page at the History Chicks, and click the button that says Join Group. Answer a couple questions and you're in. I'm interested to know if you also learned this little light of mine in school or in fact learned how to do the Hustle. Let me know. The song at the end is Do Better by John Rundfeld. We'll see you next time.

[John Rundfeld]

Do Better we could be chasing dreams we know what's right and we know how it feels yeah, we can do better we can make a change for real. Yeah, we can do a lot of better we can be facing fears we know what's up and we know how to get there yeah, we can be stars, we can be the best.

[Susan]

Just.

[John Rundfeld]

Put us to the test and we'll show the world there's another way if we just try a little every day we can make it better, We can do better we can be setting up we understand right down to the soul that we can do better we can have a heart of gold. So let's step it up, step it up, step it up we could be making moves we know what time it is and we know just what to do yeah, we could be on top we know it's true if we just give ourselves a chance we can show world Everything's going to be okay we just got to try a little every day and we can make it better. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.