Odetta won’t stop singing for human rights until the world is a perfect place.
By: Susan Van Dongen
Even fictional beatniks have praised Odetta, named "the queen of American folk music" by Martin Luther King Jr.
There’s a funny scene in the John Waters movie Hairspray where the "hair hopping" teenagers are running from their strict parents through the "beat" section of Baltimore. They knock on one door and are suddenly in the groovy digs of two beatniks (played by Pia Zadora and Ric Ocasek), where the "chick" describes a typical evening: "I play my bongos, listen to Odetta and then I iron my hair, dig?"
That’s just one in a very long list of folks who have paid homage to the godmother of folk and blues. No solo woman performer let alone an African-American woman who sang blues, folk, work and protest songs, had recorded or toured before Odetta. Her 1956 album, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, was what young Janis Joplin was listening to when she decided to become a singer. Possibly one of the most influential artists in contemporary music, the Alabama native inspired Bob Dylan to trade in his electric guitar and focus on becoming a folksinger. At age 75, she has no desire to stop doing her thing; in fact, she says her music and passion for speaking out on social issues is needed now more than ever.
The original one-named superstar long before Cher and Madonna Odetta will perform On Patriots Stage at the War Memorial in Trenton Dec. 14. The concert will draw from her six decades of song, but will also feature some of her favorite music for the Christmas season. In 2005, she released the live Gonna Let it Shine: A Concert for the Holidays (M.C. Records), surely one of the most uplifting holiday albums around, with songs like "Mary Had a Baby," "This Little Light of Mine" and "What Month Was Jesus Born In."
Odetta says the jubilation in the songs is natural for her, something handed down through generations. She notes that much traditional Christmas music is somber "there isn’t much ‘jump for joy’" but her folks had a different philosophy.
"For slaves, my forbears, the story of a boy being born in a manger and becoming the son of God is encouraging, so we celebrate and that shows in the music," she says. "These songs are fun, they speak to joy and they are also a way of teaching, of passing on information."
"What Month Was Jesus Born In" was a special song to teach children the months of the year. In slavery days, reading was taboo but that didn’t stop families from home schooling in their own way.
"In the period of slavery, during Christmas season you couldn’t plant or harvest, so it was a kind of vacation," Odetta says. "There wasn’t as much work to do. You know how you used to teach children via repetition, like learning how to spell ‘Mississippi?’ The months were taught that way through this song, which was just fun to sing. By the time you learned it, you knew the months of year."
The live album also has "Freedom Trilogy," a trio of songs Odetta did frequently during the civil rights era. An inspiration to many, she was inspired by Paul Robeson who taught "it is not only possible but necessary to be responsible to our brothers and sisters throughout the world."
She certainly hasn’t shied away from the issues, singing about the gap between the rich and poor ("Poor Man’s Blues") or unprotected sex ("Careless Love"). Odetta muses that she won’t stop singing out for human rights until the world is a perfect place.
"Then I would have nothing to do I’ll be singing ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,’" she says with a chuckle. "I was talking to someone the other day and I said, ‘We must both be (stupid). When we were kids, we were looking for fairness and here we are up in years, still looking for fairness. We haven’t learned.’ There’s quite a long list of stuff that I consider unfair, unreasonable, evil and mean. And not just for the individual, but the whole of the system that gets itself into such corners, so that they have to defend the wicked and the wrong.
"People are troubled for one reason or another and I do believe that music in itself can be healing," Odetta continues. "For musicians with consciousness, when people come to our concerts, it’s a way for them to get through the troubles. People say, ‘You’re preaching to the choir,’ but I say the choir needs to be sung to they need to be encouraged to keep on. When you find other people of the same mind, you feel camaraderie, company."
One veteran artist who has become a kind of soulmate over the years at least as far as the meaning of his music is Bob Dylan. In 1965, Odetta became the first artist to record an entire album of Dylan’s compositions. She’s currently revisiting his music, recording a long-awaited second tribute, set for release in 2007.
"As time has gone on, I’ve had a wider view of his political songs, I’ve gotten the gist of them," Odetta says. "For example, when I first heard ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,’ I just took it as someone named ‘Baby Blue.’ But now it occurs to me that Baby Blue is representing England and how she was losing her territories around the world. There’s a line, ‘All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.’ There’s some heavy stuff in there. It’s fun to tease around and that’s the part that makes me very much interested in revisiting his music."
Odetta will perform On Patriots Stage at the War Memorial, West Lafayette and
Barrack streets, Trenton, Dec. 14, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $30. For information, call
(609) 984-8400. On the Web: www.onpatriotsstage.com.
Odetta on the Web: www.concertedefforts.com/artists_odet.html

