Sixty Years Of Odetta Sings Dylan

Tiggerlion on Odetta Sings Dylan released March 1965

Odetta was born in Birmingham Alabama in the Deep South, home of spirituals, slave songs, the Delta Blues and traditional African American folklore. Her early childhood was spent in the shadow of Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan and lynchings. She moved to Los Angeles aged six but carried hatred and anger for the rest of her life, channelling it into political activism, standing up for black rights, and into a smouldering passion when she sang. She attended a Baptist church, her step father took her to see popular black acts of the time, including Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie, and her mother listened to opera on the radio on Sundays, but it was a school teacher who spotted her singing talent when she was ten. By thirteen, she was having formal classical singing lessons. For years, she was immersed in the rigor of lieder, oratorio and opera. As she approached graduation, she was determined to be a professional singer but knew that, as a black woman, she was either going have to mimic Marian Anderson or never make it singing opera at all. She refused to be someone else.

In 1950, Odetta got her first job in the chorus for a West Coast production of the musical “Finian’s Rainbow.” When the tour reached San Francisco, she found a stronger calling in the bohemian coffeehouses. She joined the troupe performing Guys ‘n’ Dolls so she could stay longer. ‘We would finish our play, we’d go to the joint, and people would sit around playing guitars and singing songs and it felt like home,’ she said. The beatniks performed folk music, so she did too, picking up a guitar and teaching herself how to play.

Odetta’s voice was a sonorous contralto. She sang with such authority it was as though it emerged from the bowels of the Earth. She was an unusual figure on the folk circuit, a black woman in a white man’s world. She presented her hair as nature intended, often wore gender neutral African clothing to draw attention to her heritage and stood tall with her chin held high. Her tightly curled hair later became fashionable, with customers asking for an Odetta, which then developed into an ‘Afro’. Marion Kirby, a custodial of the Folk tradition, told her how, in contrast to the opinion of many purists, folk music was constantly evolving, essentially providing an alternative American history to that in books. Odetta had a story tell, introducing the largely white audience to work songs, the blues and spirituals, derived from the black experience. Inside, she may have been boiling with rage but, outwardly, she remained composed. She brought a fierce masculinity to folk, banging away on her guitar, but a soft femininity to the blues. In the early fifties, the blues was almost exclusively a vehicle for older black men to moan and groan or to boast and show off. Her physical appearance and deep voice meant she could inhabit the roles of both men and women in song without pausing for breath. Odetta, a very young woman when she started out, liked to confound expectations. “I’m not a real folksinger,” she told The Washington Post in 1983. “I don’t mind people calling me that, but I’m a musical historian. I’m a city kid who has admired an area and who got into it. I’ve been fortunate. With folk music, I can do my teaching and preaching, my propagandizing.”

She preferred to perform solo, as it gave her the flexibility to change song choice according to audience response. The guitar style she developed was simple, yet unique, a style that enabled her to concentrate on singing while providing a rhythmic contrast to her voice. She set up her own pulse, synergising voice and guitar into one, establishing both her pace and her phrasing. She worked on her technique with virtuoso, Frank Hamilton, to come up with ‘the Odetta strum’. She employed a double thumb strum, hammer down, then an upward brush with the index and another brush down with the thumb, a little similar to Josh White, but more of a four/four approach rather than his syncopated swing blues style in a twelve/eight feel. Odetta often talked about loving to play in open D and moving simple chords (E, A & B7, etc.) up and down the fretboard to create new chords. She added variety by using a capo, different strumming patterns and a range of fingerpicking. Even though some of her playing sounds difficult, she said it was simple once you broke it down. 

Her first album was a collection of recordings with Larry Mohr released in 1954, The Tin Angel, named after the folk club in New York. Her second caught the attention of Bob Dylan, who started off as a rock ‘n’ roller. He said in a Playboy interview, “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.” They met, three years later, Dylan aged eighteen, as Odetta’s tour rolled into Minneapolis. She gave him words of encouragement.

Her uncompromising presentation of the African-American experience and outspoken support of civil rights drew the admiration of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, who crowned her “the queen of American folk”. She appeared on the TV show Tonight With Belafonte giving a solemn and dramatic rendition of Water Boy, delivered with devastating dignity. In 1963, Odetta joined Rev. Martin Luther King on the March on Washington, culminating in the ‘I have a dream’ speech, and sang Oh Freedom to many thousands in front of the White House. It increased her exposure, bringing her to the attention of a wider audience. She wasn’t heard much on the radio but, in the same year, her album, Odetta Sings Folk Songs, was one of the top-selling folk albums in the country. Her success led to an invitation from the White House where she performed for President John F. Kennedy for the televised civil rights special, “Dinner with the President.” She became known as the voice that soundtracked the civil rights movement.

By 1965, although in her thirties, Odetta was regarded as a veteran. The up and coming Dylan had developed into an outstanding songwriter about to explode the folk boom Odetta had been riding high. They shared a manager in Albert Grossman who suggested she record an album of Dylan songs. She’d already covered two, Blowin’ In The Wind for Odetta Sings Folk Songs and Paths Of Victory for Odetta Sings Of Many Things. As usual, she read the lyrics first. In order to embody the songs, she needed to believe their stories. Most had been published in Broadside but Grossman also possessed the Dylan Witmark Sessions that were later released as Bootleg Series Volume 9. Perhaps, he shared them with Odetta. She selected ten, only four of which Dylan had recorded previously, put together a few like-minded musicians and thought carefully about the arrangements. 

Les Grinage had been her bass player for years, touring all over the world with her. He’d accompanied many of the jazz greats of the era such as vocalist Carmen McRae and legendary pianist Bill Evans. Peter Childs was an established folk guitarist who went on to play with Fred Neil. Bruce Langhorne was a star session player and a prominent figure in Greenwich Village. He’d played with Dylan for Freewheelin’ on a traditional song, Corrine, Corrina. 

Odetta Sings Dylan opens with a deceptive love song rejected for Freewheelin’, Baby, I’m In The Mood For You. It’s set on a small holding, complete with milkcow and pony. The musicians bring a spritely twinkle to the rhythm, with some percussion to emphasise the point, but Odetta has spotted a darkness, loneliness, a whole world that needs changing and, sometimes, a mood to die. Her diction is perfect. She always made sure the words were easy to hear. However, the vocal precision makes it seem unlikely she has fallen head over heels in love. Langhorne plays his famous large Turkish frame drum, which had small bells attached around its interior, giving it a jingling sound much like a tambourine. He was the tambourine man that Dylan wanted to follow. The guitars maintain a chirpy blend for Long Ago, Far Away, with Langhorne adding some bluesy licks. Odetta’s tone is light, as though she is enjoying herself singing about Jesus on the cross, slaves in chains, war, rotting bodies, lynchings and beggars on the street. Nevertheless, it’s made clear those horrors were not just in the past, but still being inflicted on unfortunates in the present.

Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright begins with a bass solo and is taken at a slower pace than Dylan’s Freewheelin’ version but Odetta sounds happy, as if the decision to leave has lifted a weight from her shoulders. You can almost hear her whistle as she skips down the road. Recently divorced, most likely she had Dan Gordon in mind. The guitar blend and Langhorne’s cheery finger picking are the best on the whole LP. Critics make lists of best Dylan covers all the time. This should be in the top five without fail.

Joan Baez had sung Tomorrow Is A Long Time at Forrest Hills, New York in 1963 and Dylan, himself, at the Town Hall the same year. Ian and Sylvia sang it on their Four Strong Winds album. Odetta, however, performs the definitive version, transforming it into a beautifully soulful, gentle ballad, her voice delicate and soft. Elvis heard her version and was moved to record it himself. Dylan cited Elvis’s as his favourite cover of any of his songs but that’s like crediting Adele with Bryan Ferry’s arrangement of Make You Feel My Love.

Masters Of War from Freewheelin’ closes side one and sets the tone for the rest of the album. Odetta is deadly serious. She was always serious about her craft but especially so when she wanted to make a point about injustice. Dylan probably meant the song as a pacifist response to conscription and the nuclear proliferation of the Cold War. Odetta heard the struggle for civil rights. Although she was a firm supporter of Martin Luther King, she didn’t always agree with his passivity. The violent imagery and frustration in the lyrics tapped into her inner hatred, hatred of the oppressor. The Staple Singers had recorded it with righteous gospel fervour. Odetta is calm and measured, almost mediative, Grinage’s bass fiddle ticks away like an unexploded bomb, and the guitars strum ominously from a discrete distance. However, she can’t bring herself to wish death on the master of war, choosing to omit the final few lines and bring the song to an abrupt end.

There had been a number of versions of Walking Down The Line, most notably Glen Campbell in the only vocal on an otherwise instrumental The Astounding 12 String Guitar. Odetta, in a higher, hollering voice interprets a song about a hobo strolling along railtracks as a work song. Dylan’s The Times They Are A Changing comes with a dire warning. Odetta is relieved that, at long last, things are about to change because, for her, the status quo is intolerable.

With God On Our Side was well on its way to becoming a standard. She makes sure the irony is not lost on the listener by singing it as a stern rebuke. By contrast, the guitars are jazzy and pretty. She warms up a bit with Long Time Gone, relishing the itinerant minstrel lifestyle, never taking a backward glance and making the most of every waking day. A fling with a fair young maid is cut out, as is the final verse contemplating the singer’s grave. She continued to sing and tour right until the end. When she couldn’t play guitar any more, she hired a pianist and when her voice lost a little of its strength or her stamina started to fade, she got the audience to sing for her. She recognised Long Time Gone as a song that summed her up.

The finale, lasting the best part of eleven minutes, is a hypnogogic lament. Odetta, no doubt, heard the same Witmark tape of Dylan singing Mr Tambourine Man as The Byrds. Whereas they emphasise the jaunty tune played by the tambourine man, Odetta, all too familiar with “the twisted reach of crazy sorrow”, focuses on the narrator, who cannot sleep and is surrounded by misery. Her studio take was the first to be unleashed on the public and may well have inspired Dylan to close his second album of 1965 with Desolation Row. Langhorne played the electric guitar countermelody on Dylan’s version released later in the same month and The Byrds issued their breakthrough single in April. But Langhorne and Childs do not play on this track. The musical star is Grinage’s walking bass, who took the opportunity to display his jazz credentials. Odetta plays the only guitar, in her trademark thumb-heavy strum, the first time we hear it on the LP. The pair bring the album to a sobering close.

March 1965 was the month of the Marches For Freedom from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol, Montgomery, a walk of fifty-four miles. In many states in the South, black people were disenfranchised by a poll tax and a literacy test, applied by white officials, who often failed educated African Americans. In Dallas County, of 15,000 black adults, mostly living in grinding poverty, only 130, less than 1%, were registered to vote. Meanwhile, in other parts, 118% of the adult white population were registered, including some who’d moved away or died. There were only two days in the month when people could register. Activists organised hundreds of people to turn up and the state officials, under instruction from governor George Wallace and directed by sheriff Jim Clarke, responded forcibly. People were arrested for supplying water to the queue. Violence broke out. One day a state trooper shot an unarmed Jimmie Lee Jackson who died. On the 7th March, the first march was thwarted by violence against the peaceful protesters perpetrated by white bigots and state police, who deployed sticks and tear gas. The TV images horrified the country, including the federal government led by Lyndon Johnson. The Assistant Attorney General went to Selma and a safe route for a second march was agreed. Clergy and citizens across the whole of America joined them. That night, Reverend James Reeb from Boston, a white man, was savagely beaten by members of the Ku Klux Klan and died of his injuries. His death caused more consternation than Jackson’s. On March 15, the president convened a joint session of Congress, outlined a new voting rights bill, and demanded that they pass it. In a historic presentation broadcast nationally on live television, Johnson praised the courage of the African-American activists. He called Selma “a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom” on a par with the Battle of Appomattox in the American Civil War. C.T. Vivian was watching with Dr. King. “I looked over … and Martin was very quietly sitting in the chair, and a tear ran down his cheek. It was a victory like none other. It was an affirmation of the movement.” 

The Alabama National Guard was federalised to protect and guarantee the safety of a third march that set off on the 20th. 25,000 people arrived at the state capital building sixty years ago today. Dr. King delivered his ‘How long, not long” speech. The night before, on a rain sodden camp site at the City of St. Jude, just outside Montgomery, Odetta sang Masters Of War. The Voting Rights Act was passed and signed into the legislature on August 6, 1965, effectively ending segregation and solidifying voting rights for Black Americans, making Southern states more hospitable for Black people in comparison to conditions after the Civil War. Soon, the African-American migration to the North and West would be reversed.

Odetta Sings Dylan effectively brings to a close Dylan’s folk phase, underlining what a great, multi-faceted writer he’d become. Within days, his next album, Bringing It All Back Home, had an electric side and an acoustic side, featuring Langhorne prominently. By June, at Newport, he played an electric set that shocked his folk audience. Odetta played at the festival on the same day. Listening to this album, it’s not just that Odetta owns these songs, it’s as though Dylan specifically wrote them for her. She knew her own mind and did not like interference from anyone. She told Jools Holland that Dylan visited her recording studio to adjust a few lyrics but she asked him to leave “because it’s hard enough to record . . . and I didn’t want the composer standing around saying, ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’” In the end, the arrangements are exemplary, allowing Odetta to bring her personality, experience and heritage to the songs, adding a multi-layered richness in a true fusion of songwriter and singer. Her voice was so dramatic and colourful, the musicians only needed to provide a simple soundbed but these go further. Langhorne adds sparkle and Grinage brings class. Spare a thought for Childs who has to synchronise with Odetta’s pulse, replacing the role of her strum in the studio, and keep the songs alive. They wring every last drop of melody from the songs, often finding extra tunefulness that Dylan himself was probably unaware of. 

It also marks a turning point in Odetta’s career. Civil rights took a great step forward. In 1965, she was awarded the keys to the city of her birthplace, Birmingham, Alabama, ostensibly for her musical achievements but, in reality, for her efforts in the civil rights movement. The folk purists criticised her for turning away from traditional songs and recording a whole album of songs by a contemporary writer. Stubborn as ever, the criticism only encouraged her to move into jazz and other genres. In her personal life she was in a period of transition from one relationship to another, Dan Gordon to Gary Shead. 1965 was as eventful for Odetta as it was for African Americans. 

Sadly, the pall of racism hangs over her career. She couldn’t pursue opera singing, for which she trained. In the folk clubs where she made her name, known for their liberal attitude, she was still subjected to jealousy and other ignominies. At her height, she was paid well but not as well as white, female singers, such as Joan Baez. It’s telling that Baez’s 1965 album, Farewell, Angelina, on which Langhorne also played electric guitar, made number ten on the Billboard chart. Odetta Sings Dylan didn’t make the top two hundred at all. That’s not Baez’s fault but it does illustrate the state of America back then and the industry in which they were working. 

She won plenty of accolades. Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Arts in 1999. In 2004, she was honoured at the Kennedy Center with the “Visionary Award”. In 2005, the Library of Congress awarded her wit its “Living Legend Award”. She is the recipient of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C. and the Duke Ellington Fellowship Award from Yale University. She has served as Artistinresidence at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. She was elected to the Alabama Music Hall Of Fame in 2018. Sadly, she died before she could sing at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Aretha Franklin sang instead.

Odetta was a pioneer, a trailblazer. She was known by just her Christian name, a black woman who forged a living from folk music, created her own style of rhythm guitar, was unflinching in the face of injustice and one of the earliest to make a whole album of Dylan songs. She wrote some songs herself, but she was too private to be as self-revealing as Joni Mitchell and too honest to deploy Dylan’s trickery and disguise. Odetta was a force of nature who was expert at finding depth and meaning in every song she sang. She loathed injustice and railed against it all her life. She deserves more of our love, affection and appreciation. If you have a hair style named after you and Aretha Franklin is your stand in, you must be very special.

1965, and the month of March in particular, was pivotal for Odetta, Bob Dylan, folk music in America and civil rights. It was sixty years ago. Feels like yesterday.

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