SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
WINTER, 2016
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
WINTER, 2016
VOLUME THREE NUMBER THREE
HENRY THREADGILL
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE
(December 3-9)
DEXTER GORDON
(December 10-16)
JEANNE LEE
(December 17-23)
CASSANDRA WILSON
(December 24-30)
SAM RIVERS
(December 31-January 6)
TERRY CALLIER
(January 7-13)
ODETTA
(January 14-20)
LESTER BOWIE
(January 21-27)
SHIRLEY BASSEY
(January 28-February 3)
HAMPTON HAWES
(February 4-10)
GRACHAN MONCUR III
(February 11-17)
LARRY YOUNG
(February 18-24)
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/odetta-mn0000888730/biography
Odetta Holmes
(1930-2008)
Artist Biography by Philip Van Vleck
One of the strongest voices in the folk revival and the civil rights movement, Odetta
was born on New Year's Eve 1930 in Birmingham, AL. By the time she was
six years old, she had moved with her younger sister and mother to Los
Angeles. She showed a keen interest in music from the time she was a
child, and when she was about ten years old, somewhere between church
and school, her singing voice was discovered. Odetta's
mother began saving money to pay for voice lessons for her, but was
advised to wait until her daughter was 13 years old and well into
puberty. Thanks to her mother, Odetta
began voice lessons when she was 13. She received a classical training,
which was interrupted when her mother could no longer afford to pay for
the lessons. The puppeteer Harry Burnette interceded and paid for Odetta to continue her voice training.
When she was 19 years old, Odetta
landed a role in the Los Angeles production of Finian's Rainbow, which
was staged in the summer of 1949 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. It
was during the run of this show that she first heard the blues
harmonica master Sonny Terry. The following summer, Odetta
was again performing in summer stock in California. This time it was a
production of Guys and Dolls, staged in San Francisco. Hanging out in
North Beach during her days off, Odetta had her first experience with the growing local folk music scene. Following her summer in San Francisco, Odetta returned to Los Angeles, where she worked as a live-in housekeeper. During this time she performed on a show bill with Paul Robeson.
In 1953, Odetta took some time off from her housecleaning chores to travel to New York City and appear at the famed Blue Angel folk club. Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte had both taken an interest in her career by this time, and her debut album, The Tin Angel, was released in 1954. From this time forward, Odetta
worked to expand her repertoire and make full use of what she has
always termed her "instrument." When she began singing, she was
considered a coloratura soprano. As she matured, she became more of a
mezzo-soprano. Her experience singing folk music led her to discover a
vocal range that runs from coloratura to baritone.
Odetta's most productive decade as a recording artist came in the 1960s, when she released 16 albums, including Odetta at Carnegie Hall, Christmas Spirituals, Odetta and the Blues, It's a Mighty World, and Odetta Sings Dylan. In 1999 she released her first studio album in 14 years, Blues Everywhere I Go. On September 29, 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta
with the National Endowment for the Arts' Medal of the Arts, a fitting
tribute to one of the great treasures of American music.
The next few years found Odetta releasing some new full-length albums, including Livin' with the Blues and a collection of Leadbelly tunes, Looking for a Home. She toured North America, Latvia, and Scotland and was mentioned in Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary, No Direction Home. That same year Odetta released Gonna Let It Shine,
which went on to receive a 2007 Grammy nomination for Best Traditional
Folk Album. In December 2008, she died of heart disease in New York.
http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2008/12/odetta-revolutionary-artist-and-civil.htmlWednesday, December 3, 2008
Odetta: Revolutionary Artist and Civil Rights Movement Icon, 1930-2008
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/arts/20081203_odetta.html?hp
VIDEO
(Click on link 'The Last Word' below)
The Last Word: Odetta
Watch a full-length version of the video above, including an extended interview with the singer, whose voice was the soundtrack of the civil rights movement.
Odetta, Voice of Civil Rights Movement, Dies at 77
All,
A cultural GIANT and a great artist died yesterday. Odetta was one of the true authentic icons of the Civil Rights Movement and a major influence on generations of socially conscious and engaged singers, songwriters, and activists. Her tremendous voice, stirring musical vision, and fierce committment to social, racial, and economic justice, as well as gender equality will be sorely missed. Her many and crucial contributions to the Movement were an inspiration and a clarion call for many to join and participate in the ongoing global struggle for Democracy and Peace. Her extraordinary legacy will never die so long as there are other artists and cultural workers to continue in her revolutionary path. Thank you Odetta and rest in peace sister...
Kofi
Odetta, Voice of Civil Rights Movement, Dies at 77
by TIM WEINER
December 3, 2008
New York Times
Odetta, the singer whose deep voice wove together the strongest songs of American folk music and the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She was 77.
Odetta became a force of the folk music revival in the 1950s. In the 1960s her renditions of spirituals and blues became part of the soundtrack of the civil rights movement.
The cause was heart disease, said her manager, Doug Yeager. He added that she had been hoping to sing at Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Odetta sang at coffeehouses and at Carnegie Hall, made highly influential recordings of blues and ballads, and became one of the most widely known folk-music artists of the 1950s and ’60s. She was a formative influence on dozens of artists, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Janis Joplin.
Her voice was an accompaniment to the black-and-white images of the freedom marchers who walked the roads of Alabama and Mississippi and the boulevards of Washington in the quest to end racial discrimination.
Rosa Parks, the woman who started the boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Ala., was once asked which songs meant the most to her. She replied, “All of the songs Odetta sings.”
Odetta sang at the march on Washington, a pivotal event in the civil rights movement, in August 1963. Her song that day was “O Freedom,” dating to slavery days: “O freedom, O freedom, O freedom over me, And before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave, And go home to my Lord and be free.”
Odetta Holmes was born in Birmingham, Ala., on Dec. 31, 1930, in the depths of the Depression. The music of that time and place — particularly prison songs and work songs recorded in the fields of the Deep South — shaped her life.
“They were liberation songs,” she said in a videotaped interview with The New York Times in 2007 for its online feature “The Last Word.” “You’re walking down life’s road, society’s foot is on your throat, every which way you turn you can’t get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the road and you can either lie down and die, or insist upon your life.”
Her father, Reuben Holmes, died when she was young, and in 1937 she and her mother, Flora Sanders, moved to Los Angeles. Three years later, Odetta discovered that she could sing.
“A teacher told my mother that I had a voice, that maybe I should study,” she recalled. “But I myself didn’t have anything to measure it by.”
She found her own voice by listening to blues, jazz and folk music from the African-American and Anglo-American traditions. She earned a music degree from Los Angeles City College. Her training in classical music and musical theater was “a nice exercise, but it had nothing to do with my life,” she said.
“The folk songs were — the anger,” she emphasized.
In a 2005 National Public Radio interview, she said: “School taught me how to count and taught me how to put a sentence together. But as far as the human spirit goes, I learned through folk music.”
In 1950, Odetta began singing professionally in a West Coast production of the musical “Finian’s Rainbow,” but she found a stronger calling in the bohemian coffeehouses of San Francisco. “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.
She began singing in nightclubs, cutting a striking figure with her guitar and her close-cropped hair.
Her voice plunged deep and soared high, and her songs blended the personal and the political, the theatrical and the spiritual. Her first solo album, “Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues,” resonated with an audience hearing old songs made new.
Bob Dylan, referring to that recording, said in a 1978 interview, “The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta.” He said he heard something “vital and personal,” and added, “I learned all the songs on that record.” It was her first, and the songs were “Mule Skinner,” “Jack of Diamonds,” “Water Boy,” “ ’Buked and Scorned.”
Her blues and spirituals led directly to her work for the civil rights movement. They were two rivers running together, she said in her interview with The Times. The words and music captured “the fury and frustration that I had growing up.”
Her fame hit a peak in 1963, when she marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and performed for President John F. Kennedy. But after King was assassinated in 1968, the wind went out of the sails of the civil rights movement and the songs of protest and resistance that had been the movement’s soundtrack. Odetta’s fame flagged for years thereafter.
In 1999 President Bill Clinton awarded Odetta the National Endowment for the Arts Medal of the Arts and Humanities.
Odetta was married three times: to Don Gordon, to Gary Shead, and, in 1977, to the blues musician Iverson Minter, known professionally as Louisiana Red. The first two marriages ended in divorce; Mr. Minter moved to Germany in 1983 to pursue his performing career.
She was singing and performing well into the 21st century, and her influence stayed strong.
In April 2007, half a century after Bob Dylan first heard her, she was on stage at a Carnegie Hall tribute to Bruce Springsteen. She turned one of his songs, “57 Channels,” into a chanted poem, and Mr. Springsteen came out from the wings to call it “the greatest version” of the song he had ever heard.
Reviewing a December 2006 performance, James Reed of The Boston Globe wrote: “Odetta’s voice is still a force of nature — something commented upon endlessly as folks exited the auditorium — and her phrasing and sensibility for a song have grown more complex and shaded.”
The critic called her “a majestic figure in American music, a direct gateway to bygone generations that feel so foreign today.”
http://www.biography.com/people/odetta-507480
Odetta
Civil Rights Activist, Songwriter, Singer (1930–2008)
ODETTA
(1930-2008)
(1930-2008)
Odetta Holmes, later known simply as Odetta, was born on December 31, 1930, in Birmingham, Alabama. Before she even learned how to play an instrument, Odetta banged on the family piano in hopes of making music—until her family members got headaches and told her to stop. Growing up in the Deep South during the Great Depression, Odetta fell in love with the work songs she heard people singing to ease the pain of the times. "They were liberation songs," she later recalled. "You're walking down life's road, society's foot is on your throat, every which way you turn you can't get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the road and you can either lie down and die or insist upon your life ... those people who made up the songs were the ones who insisted upon life."
Odetta's father, Reuben Holmes, died when Odetta was a child. In 1937 she and her mother, Flora Sanders, moved across the country to Los Angeles. It was on the train to California that Odetta had her first significant experience with racism. "We were on the train when, at one point, a conductor came back and said that all the colored people had to move out of this car and into another one," she remembered. "That was my first big wound."
Although Odetta loved singing, she never considered whether she had any particular vocal talent until one of her grammar school teachers heard her voice. The teacher insisted to Odetta's mother that she sign her up for classical training. In junior high, after several years of voice coaching, she landed a spot in a prestigious signing group called the Madrigal Singers. When Odetta graduated from Belmont High School in Los Angeles, she continued on to Los Angeles City College to study music. She later insisted, however, that her real education came from outside the classroom. "School taught me how to count and taught me how to put a sentence together," she acknowledged. "But as far as the human spirit goes, I learned through folk music." And as far as her musical development went, Odetta said her formal training was "a nice exercise, but it had nothing to do with my life."
'Soundtrack of the Civil Rights Movement'
In 1950, after graduating from college with a degree in music, Odetta landed a role in the chorus of a traveling production of Finian's Rainbow. She fell in love with folk music when, after a show in San Francisco, she went to a Bohemian coffee shop and experienced a late-night folk music session. "That night I heard hours and hours of songs that really touched where I live," she said. "I borrowed a guitar and learned three chords, and started to sing at parties." Later that year, she left the theater company and took a job singing at a San Francisco folk club. In 1953, she moved to New York City and soon became a fixture at Manhattan's famed Blue Angel nightclub. "As I did those songs, I could work on my hate and fury without being antisocial," she said. "Through those songs, I learned things about the history of black people in this country that the historians in school had not been willing to tell us about or had lied about."
She recorded her first solo album, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, in 1956, and it became an instant classic in American folk music. Bob Dylan later cited that album as the record that first turned him on to folk music, and Time magazine raved about "the meticulous care with which she tried to recreate the feeling of her folk songs." Odetta quickly followed with two more highly acclaimed folk albums: At the Gate of Horn (1957) and My Eyes Have Seen (1959). In 1960, Odetta delivered a famed concert at Carnegie Hall and released a live recording of the performance.
The 1960s, however, were Odetta's most prolific years. During that decade, she lent her powerful voice to the cause of black equality—so often so that her music has frequently been called the "soundtrack of the Civil Rights Movement." She performed at political rallies, demonstrations and benefits. In 1963, during the March on Washington, Odetta gave the most iconic performance of her life: Singing from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after an introduction by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Odetta also recorded more than a dozen albums during the 1960s, most notably Odetta and the Blues, One Grain of Sand, It's a Mighty World and Odetta Sings Dylan.
Later Career
Odetta's popularity waned after the 1960s, and she recorded only several more albums over the remaining four decades of her life. Her most prominent later works include Movin' It On (1987), Blues Everywhere I Go (1999) and Looking for a Home (2001). One of the greatest American folk singers of all time, Odetta has been cited as a prominent influence by such legendary musicians as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Janis Joplin. President Bill Clinton presented her with a National Medal of Arts in 1999. In 2004, she was made a Kennedy Center honoree and in 2005, the Library of Congress awarded her its Living Legend Award. Her highly acclaimed final album, a live recording performed when she was 74 years old, was entitled Gonna Let It Shine (2005). Her music inspired a generation of civil rights activists who helped tear down the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow to build a more equal and just United States of America. In her later years, after the popularity of folk music had declined, Odetta made it her mission to share its potency with a new generation of youth. "The folk repertoire is our inheritance. Don't have to like it, but we need to hear it," she said. "I love getting to schools and telling kids there's something else out there. It's from their forebears, and it's an alternative to what they hear on the radio. As long as I am performing, I will be pointing out that heritage that is ours."
Odetta continued performing right up until almost the day of her death on December 2, 2008, at the age of 77. She had dreamed of performing at the inauguration of President Barack Obama, but tragically passed away just weeks before he took office.
Odetta
Black folk singer who cut across the race divide to popularise the genre in America
Before black was beautiful, before folk music became widely popular, before even the civil rights struggle stood for something every American understood, there was Odetta. She helped popularise folk in the US while blazing a trail for independent female singers, both black and white, her influence being felt in the music of Joan Baez, Janis Joplin and Tracy Chapman, among many others.
Her gap-toothed smile and commanding, yet warm, stage presence marked her out as an outstanding live entertainer, and one of the first black women to attract a large white audience. Odetta, who has died of kidney failure aged 77, received many honours during her life, most notably by Martin Luther King, who called her "the queen of American folk music", and the then president Bill Clinton, who in 1999 awarded her the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities. She had been due to sing at Barack Obama's inauguration in January.
Odetta was born in Birmingham, Alabama, to Reuben Holmes, a steel-mill worker, and his wife, Flora, a maid. Her father died when Odetta was a toddler. Her mother then remarried, to Zadock Felious, and the family moved to Los Angeles. Although she took her stepfather's surname, as a performer Odetta always used only her first name. Her parents played her jazz and classical music, her mother enrolling her in opera lessons when she was 13. On leaving high school, she went to work as a maid, while studying classical music and musical comedy at night school. She first sang professionally in Los Angeles in 1944, began to get work in musical theatre, and in 1949 sang in the touring production of Finian's Rainbow. In 1950 she was cast in a production of Guys and Dolls.
While performing in San Francisco with the show, Odetta became aware of the nascent folk music movement, and, having bought a guitar, tentatively began to perform. Woody Guthrie's protege Ramblin' Jack Elliott helped her get a booking in a folk club, and she soon won a residency and a loyal audience.
Returning to Los Angeles, she again worked as a maid while pursuing work as a singer. Around this time she developed a mix of folk, spirituals and blues that would change little across the following decades. "In school, you learn about American history through battles," she told the New York Times in 1981. "But I learned about the United States through this music, through the songs that I sing."
In 1953 she performed at the Blue Angel folk club in New York. There she met Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte, who both began to champion her work. The following year, the San Francisco jazz label Fantasy Records released Odetta & Larry, an album shared with the folk singer Larry Mohr. Odetta's debut solo album, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, was released in 1956 by Tradition Records. Her 1957 album At the Horn was later cited by Bob Dylan as the recording that spurred him to play folk music.
In 1959 Belafonte included Odetta on his television special, helping her to win a wide audience. She signed with New York's Vanguard Records and released albums regularly, three in 1960 alone. In 1961 she sang with Belafonte on There's a Hole in the Bucket, a minor hit in the UK. She acted in the films Sanctuary (1961) and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974).
Odetta's afro hairstyle and pride in her African features made her a role model for many black Americans. She identified with the civil rights movement and sang at the March on Washington on August 28 1963, performed for President John F Kennedy at a civil rights presentation and marched with King from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Her studio recordings often possessed a somewhat stilted atmosphere, but in concert she came into her own. Her live albums, Odetta at Carnegie Hall (1960) and Odetta at Town Hall (1962), captured her varied repertoire and strong, soulful persona. Yet, as popular music changed during the 1960s, she came to be regarded as old-fashioned. Her reliance on traditional material meant that she was overtaken by a new wave of folk-inspired singer-songwriters while her mezzo-soprano vocal appeared too formal compared with with the gospel/blues-derived voices then favoured in black music.
Although Odetta continued to perform, recording occasionally, her achievements were largely forgotten. In 1988 she signed up with a new manager, Doug Yeager, who immediately raised her profile, and she began recording and touring again, often playing the UK. Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home (2005) included a clip of her appearance on Tonight With Belafonte in 1959. Her 2007 album Gonna Let It Shine was nominated for the best traditional folk album Grammy. Earlier this year, she launched a US tour, performing from a wheelchair and campaigning for Obama from the stage.
She was married and divorced three times, to Don Gordon, Gary Shead and the blues musician Iverson Minter (Louisiana Red). She is survived by her adopted daughter Michelle Esrick.
• Odetta Holmes Felious, singer and actor, born December 31 1930; died December 2, 2008
· This article was amended on Friday December 5 2008. Odetta's duet with Harry Belafonte was called "There's a Hole in the Bucket", not "My Bucket's got a Hole in it", as we said originally. This has been corrected.
http://www.mnblues.com/review/2002/odetta-intv-dm.html
Interview:
Odetta
"The Music is Energy"
by Danny Murray
2000
Photography copyright © 2002 by Chuck Winans, all rights reserved
Keeping the Blues Alive Award Winner: Achievement for Blues on the Internet. Presented by the Blues Foundation
music bar
Odetta celebrated her 50th year in Show Business with the release of "Blues Everywhere I Go," the 27th solo album of her career. She will be the headliner at this year's Limestone City Blues Festival in Kingston August 24, 2000. With this recording, which has received a 2000 Grammy Award Nomination in the Traditional Blues Album category and two W.C. Handy Award nominations, Odetta pays homage to the great Blues women of the 20's and 30's.
Born in Alabama in 1930, she began her music career as one of the first woman folk artists of the fifties. Along with her new album, a must have is the "Odetta: Best of the Vanguard Years" collection, which includes a 1963 concert at Carnegie Hall with bassist Bill Lee (Spike's dad). She influenced such artists as Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, and even Bob Dylan, who said, "I learned all the songs on her first record word for word."
The Sixties witnessed Odetta as a major voice in America's Civil Rights Movement. She marched with Martin Luther King, and performed for President Kennedy on a nationally televised Civil Rights Program. She has appeared on stage and screen, appearing at Stratford, and in the 1960 film "Sanctuary" starring with Lee Remick and Yves Montand. She was the first recipient, in 1972,along with Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson of the "Duke Ellington Fellowship Award."
Blues Picture
In 1975 she hosted the Montreux (Switzerland) Jazz Festival, and since then has starred at virtually every other major festival around the world. She has performed in plays by Toni Morrison, and has been a best friend of poet Maya Angelou for over fifty years. She was recently honoured by President Clinton on the Anniversary of her 50th year as an entertainer. She was quoted once as saying, "Music is outside the path we walk every day. Ever since primitive man we have been lifted by it, and we want to be lifted by it. Even though we're heading for Mars and a push-button world, we still have our basic emotions to deal with and that's where songs are coming from."
Odetta spoke to me by phone from her home in New York City.
DM: You have a very busy schedule this year.
ODETTA: (Laughing) Yes isn't that great. You sound like you are in a tunnel. I don't hear the crackling, which means I can concentrate on what your voice is saying. You're recording. Yes. Good, good, good, good.
DM: Douglas Yaeger (her manager) sent me a ten-page information sheet on your background and I must say you have an amazing life and I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you.
ODETTA: May I say that that's a two way street. (I laugh) I really do. I really do admire the fact that there is someone here who wants to get into whatever we're going to get into. (She laughs)
DM: Thank you. I am a big fan of the Blues myself, and I really think that it is great the way it is becoming more appreciated these days.
Blues Picture
ODETTA: It really is growing in audience isn't it.
DM: Years ago when you came out with your first Blues album in the early Sixties people were upset because you were moving away from the folk genre.
ODETTA: Those were our purest days. Ha ha. The people were pure. It had to be folk or it had to be blues. We didn't know back then. We weren't told by the people who researched the music, and they probably didn't recognize it either. You know this is a country the US of separation. We separate each other. I don't know if we do that of our own accord. We do that because industry does that. Puts one against the other. In order to pay lower wages for the other. Ok. And we didn't recognize back then that there was no way to put up a wall between one music and another. As people came into this country, we did not hang out with each other in our churches, our mosques or our synagogues, in our homes, hovels or out on the street. We didn't invite each other over to our own places, but the music. Each of us heard each other's music. And as we heard there is no way you can delete what you have heard out of your mind. Whether it be your parents scolding you. Ok a sidebar here. I wonder if you can remember things your parents told you and you thought it went in one ear and out the other ear. And then years later recalled what they said. (We both laugh) Well there was no way to separate music. Although that was the way we were thinking because that was the way of our earning a living, and the people we believed. So one thing has led into another. The cousins, the brothers and sisters, each of the music areas coming out of the United States. Unless it is a pure Appalachian song, or a pure Irish song with the fiddles and whatever, when they got here honey they got mixed up with stuff, as a matter of fact I was always curious as to an Englishman by the name of Child's. Child's ballads, he collected there and then he came over to Appalachia and he collected there similar songs. When you come from a country into another country you bring what you learned there in country A. You bring country A with you and then when you are chopping down the trees and building houses and do whatever else you are going to build you have other experiences. So you add and this is not a conscious thing. You add what your experience is to what you come out of and from. So the people's experience here, whether black or white or Mexican, now the originals here. they put there experience together and the music is the result of what their experiences have been. That is why the wide stroke of music that is coming out of United States, and I have a feeling that the rest of the world is absolutely fascinated with this cup of soup.
DM: This is your first album in fourteen years and you chose the Blues.
Blues Picture
ODETTA: Because Mark Carpentieri at MC records came to us and he was interested in doing a blues record and that was right up my alley.
DM: Even in your folk there is blues.
ODETTA: Did you hear what I was saying to you in the last ten minutes. It isn't separated. All that folk stuff is a part of what the blues is.
DM: It is just what you lived.
ODETTA: No not what I lived. I am a historian, an observer; I have noticed things and that is all that I can claim.
DM: But you have not just been observing, you've been doing and I have noticed that you have been doing some great things as well. I have picked up your Village Vanguard release and your voice is amazing. And the songs with just you and Bill Lee's bass are special.
ODETTA: While we are talking I would like to just say here that one of the greatest teachers that I have ever had was Alberta Hunter. She was wonderful. As I was a youngster listening to old blues records I heard energy, and I thought you get that energy by yelling hollering and screaming. And if you compare those two records, the old blues record and this new one. I have not done this yet, but one of these days I would like to compare what I did when I was a younger one and what I did after I learned lessons from Alberta Hunter. This little wee biddy lady at the age of 84, as she was singing she didn't yell scream or holler. She just dug her little feet into the floor. And pushed up from the bottom, the diaphragm, and she focused, she told a story. And that's what I am working on. I started working on this record, and as Seth Farber (piano player, producer) and I go around I am working on trying not to over say anything, and keeping away from yelling screaming and hollering.
DM: While you do that beautifully.
ODETTA: Thank you
DM: Have you met Alberta Hunter.
ODETTA: I did meet her, but it was like she was a teacher, and I never did sit and talk with teachers. I thanked them and then sat off and listened. I did so appreciate her, and she was quite gracious to me also. But I mostly learned from watching her perform and listening to her perform.
DM: Your biography seems very linear. Were there times where you didn't perform? It looks like you have been on the road for fifty years doing your thing, and always had great audiences wherever you went. Were there hard times as well?
ODETTA: I have always performed. I have been able to earn my living via love of the music. I might have been 22 or 23 when I received unemployment checks for two weeks. Outside of that I have been able to earn my living
DM: Amazing
ODETTA: It truly is. You know the world's greatest voice could be walking around and trying to get someone to listen to them. It has an awful lot to do with luck and timing.
DM: Luck and timing, but you went out there and did it.
Blues Picture
ODETTA: Well, you have to have a little something. (Laughs) Maybe not just a little something. Because I have heard an awful lot of people who ain't got nothing honey, and they project it, and there is somebody putting money in back of it. So, it's not a given.
DM: You have always seemed to stay true to your love, and what you wanted to do.
ODETTA: Fortunately I have been politicized by Paul Robeson, and Marian Anderson, and I have been politicized by the people around the area of folk music. I truly need to feel like I am useful. I know there are people who would like to disconnect what our living is from politics, but there is just no way you can do that. So I have been involved with being supportive of what I call righteous causes and that keeps my feet on the ground.
DM: When you are coming to Kingston, who is coming with you.
ODETTA: Seth Farber. There is one concert I am bringing my guitar, and I don't know if this is the one.
DM: You can bring your guitar. And if you need one we will find one for you.
ODETTA: Well thank you, I have been with Seth over a year now, and he is simply wonderful.
DM: What are some of the other things you will be doing this summer.
ODETTA: Our next thing is the Cambridge Festival in England, and the Knitting Factory in California
DM: There are many Odetta sites now on the Internet, is it possible to e-mail you directly.
ODETTA: Honey I have just mastered the touch tone phone.
DM: The Kingston Blues Festival is looking forward to having you.
ODETTA: Are you going to come up to me and say hi.
DM: Certainly, and one last question. If you could wave your magic wand and change anything in the world what would it be?
ODETTA: (Long pause) I think maybe I would wave the magic wand and take the meanness, the callousness, and the need to hurt, along with the area of greed. I think I would erase that out of the human person.
DM: I think the world would still survive if you did that, and it might be a better world.
Blues Picture
ODETTA: That is the only way we are going to survive. We can't survive on war. We still have land mines and children are losing limbs, we are still having embargoes where children can't get medicine or food. Oh, please we can't survive on that.
DM: You have done so much for music breaking ground for women and women of color.
ODETTA: As an observer you see all that. But with a performer, or a writer, or a poet or an architect they're on to the next thing. They're not looking back. You are observing. And it would take you to make mention of what has come before and the stuff that they have done. I am not back there. I am wondering what I am going to do the day after tomorrow.
DM: Thank you very much, you are a beautiful person, and I look forward to seeing you at the Kingston Blues Fest.
ODETTA: It takes a beautiful person to know one, and I enjoyed talking to you too.
Appreciation
A life of spirit and surprises
by
James Reed
Globe Staff
/
December 6, 2008
The Boston Globe
December 6, 2008
The Boston Globe
I spoke to Odetta for that story, and I'm glad I did, even though she wasn't the easiest interview. She was receptive to my theory that sometimes we're not prepared to appreciate certain kinds of art when we first encounter them. "Well, of course, the music makes sense to you now," she told me on the phone from her apartment in New York. "Our world has changed so much since you were 18 and now you're 28."
True to her regal reputation, Odetta didn't suffer fools, especially late in her life, and then I made the mistake of asking what songs she would be playing that weekend in Newport. "I don't understand where these questions are taking us," she said curtly. Point taken, and after just nine minutes on the phone, it was clear I had gotten what I needed. She very politely thanked me for my interest in her music. We hung up.
Obviously, it wasn't personal, and besides, I couldn't be upset with someone who had inspired me so much. Every time I hear her voice - that majestic, booming instrument that seemed to descend from on high - I'm reminded of how transformative music really is. To me, Odetta harnessed a visceral energy, a vibe as fierce as her Afro, whether she was singing folk, blues, spirituals, or pop songs. I dare you to watch the brief YouTube clip of Odetta performing "Water Boy" in "No Direction Home," Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary on Dylan, and not get the chills. Or maybe you'll feel a little terrified when she starts barking and bellowing as the camera suddenly draws back almost as a reaction to the force she unleashes.
As soon as I heard about her death, my first and only inclination was to pull out all of my Odetta albums on vinyl - hard-won treasures secured in the last minute of bidding on eBay. For such an icon of song, Odetta rarely gets enough credit for what she accomplished as a musician. She's renowned for her spirit, her conviction, her role in the fight for civil rights, but much of her catalog is shamefully out of print.
There are so many memorable Odetta moments on record, as stirring now as when they were pressed 30, 40, and 50 years ago. From "Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues," her 1956 solo debut, she sounds like a mournful siren who's lost her way on "Deep Blue Sea." Put on "Tomorrow Is a Long Time," from "Odetta Sings Dylan" (1965), and marvel at how she takes her time to illustrate the loneliness of waiting for a true love to return.
More recently, indie-pop auteur Stephin Merritt recruited Odetta to sing "Waltzing Me All the Way Home" on the 6ths album "Hyacinths and Thistles" in 2000. He later said Odetta had told him she thought the song was about two gay black soldiers during World War II, which was news to Merritt.
That was Odetta, as full of surprises as she was spirit, and the list of her unforgettable performances goes on and on. Now it's really up to a record label to crack open the vaults and get Odetta's full catalog back in circulation. After all, a national treasure deserves a national audience.
James Reed can be reached at jreed@globe.com.
http://www.colorlines.com/articles/odetta-voice-civil-rights-movement-1930-2008
Odetta,
"The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement" (1930-2008)
by Jonathan Adams
December 3, 2008
Odetta, most famous for singing at the March on Washington in 1963, will not be able to perform as she intended at Barack Obama's inauguration next month. The woman, known as "the voice of the Civil Rights Movement," became famous among musicians like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan but did not consider herself a folk singer.
"I'm not a real folk singer," 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." In The Washington Post interview, Odetta theorized that humans developed music and dance because of fear, "fear of God, fear that the sun would not come back, many things. I think it developed as a way of worship or to appease something. ... The world hasn't improved, and so there's always something to sing about."[Associated Press]
Odetta died Tuesday after battling heart disease. She was 77.
Odetta Speaks About Her Life As An Activist:
In honor of Odetta, the National Visionary Leadership Project offers
this clip where Odetta speaks about her life as an activist. To see more
oral history interview clips with Odetta, visit: http://www.visionaryproject.org/gordo.
THE MUSIC OF ODETTA: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MS. HOLMES:
Odetta - "House of the Rising Sun"
"If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time"
-- Maya Angelou
Odetta - "Jim Crow Blues":
"Jim Crow Blues"
Performed by Odetta Holmes (2003)
originally performed by Lead Belly (1930)
From the movie: Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues concert:
New York's Radio City Music Hall (February 2003)
Director : Antoine Fuqua
Executive Producer: Martin Scorsese
Music Director: Steve Jordan
Producer: Alex Gibney & Margaret Bodde
Lyrics: Lead Belly version:
Bunk Johnson told me too, This old Jim Crowism dead bad luck for me and you
I been traveling, i been traveling from shore to shore
Everywhere I have been I find some old Jim Crow
One thing, people, I want everybody to know
You're gonna find some Jim Crow, every place you go
Down in Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia's a mighty good place to go
And get together, break up this old Jim Crow
I told everybody over the radio
Make up their mind and get together, break up this old Jim Crow
I want to tell you people something that you don't know
It's a lotta Jim Crow in a moving picture show
I'm gonna sing this verse, I ain't gonna sing no more
Please get together, break up this old Jim Crow
Odetta-"Oh, papa":
Odetta--"All the Pretty Little Horses":
Odetta - "Hit Or Miss":
Odetta - "This Little Light Of Mine (best version)":
Odetta - "Battle Hymn Of The Republic":
This is Odetta's rendition of the popular American abolitionist song 'Battle Hymn Of
The Republic', from the album Best Of The Vanguard Years.
Odetta
is one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century. By
combining the power and grace of an opera singer with the earthiness of a
blues singer and the conviction of a folk singer, Odetta became a
commanding, stirring singer unlike any other.
Odetta released
her first album, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, in 1956. This is some
two years before the beginning of the folk revival with which she is
usually associated. The power of her singing seems to connect her to an
earlier folk music, more elemental and raw than her late-50s and
early-60s peers. Unlike the Highwaymen or other popular interrupters of
classic folk songs, Odetta seems closer in both approach and
presentation to Leadbelly. Her interest in folk music appeared to be
less of a personal "revival" or awakening, than a continuation of a
living tradition. She was referred to as the "female Leadbelly."
Bob
Dylan was major inspired by Odetta - - in 1956 her album, "ODETTA Sings
Ballads & Blues," inspired him to trade in his electric guitar for a
Gibson acoustic guitar,and got him into folk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odetta
Odetta
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Odetta | |
|---|---|
Odetta (1961)
|
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Odetta Holmes |
| Also known as | Odetta Gordon |
| Born | December 31, 1930 Birmingham, Alabama, United States |
| Died | December 2, 2008 (aged 77) New York City |
| Genres | Folk, blues, spirituals |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Years active | 1944–2008 |
| Labels | Fantasy, Tradition, Vanguard, RCA Victor, MC, Silverwolf, Original Blues Classics |
| Associated acts | Lead Belly, Janis Joplin, The Staple Singers, Bessie Smith, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt Harry Belafonte |
Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a civil and human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement".[1] Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she influenced many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Time included her song "Take This Hammer" on its list of the All-Time 100 Songs, stating that "Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music."[2]
Contents
Biography
Early life and career
Odetta was born in Birmingham, Alabama, grew up in Los Angeles, attended Belmont High School, and studied music at Los Angeles City College while employed as a domestic worker. She had operatic training from the age of 13. Her mother hoped she would follow Marian Anderson, but Odetta doubted a large black girl would ever perform at the Metropolitan Opera.[3] Her first professional experience was in musical theater in 1944, as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre, working alongside Elsa Lanchester. She later joined the national touring company of the musical Finian's Rainbow in 1949.
While on tour with Finian's Rainbow, Odetta "fell in with an enthusiastic group of young balladeers in San Francisco", and after 1950 concentrated on folksinging.[4]
She made her name by playing around the United States at the Blue Angel nightclub (New York City), the hungry i (San Francisco), and Tin Angel (San Francisco), where she and Larry Mohr recorded Odetta and Larry in 1954, for Fantasy Records.
A solo career followed, with Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues (1956) and At the Gate of Horn (1957). Odetta Sings Folk Songs was one of 1963's best-selling folk albums.
In 1959 she appeared on Tonight With Belafonte, a nationally televised special. Odetta sang Water Boy and a duet with Belafonte, There's a Hole in My Bucket.[5]
In 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr. anointed her "The Queen of American folk music".[6] Also in 1961 the duo Harry Belafonte and Odetta made #32 in the UK Singles Chart with the song There's a Hole in the Bucket.[7] Many Americans remember her performance at the 1963 civil rights movement's March on Washington where she sang "O Freedom."[8] She considered her involvement in the Civil Rights movement as being "one of the privates in a very big army."[9]
Odetta (Burg Waldeck-Festival 1968, Germany)
Odetta also acted in several films during this period, including Cinerama Holiday (1955), the film of William Faulkner's Sanctuary (1961) and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974). In 1961 she appeared in an episode of TV's Have Gun, Will Travel, playing the wife of a man sentenced to hang ("The Hanging of Aaron Gibbs").
Her marriages to Dan Gordon and Gary Shead ended in divorce. Singer-guitarist Louisiana Red was a former companion.[3]
Later career
In May 1975 she appeared on public television's Say Brother program, performing "Give Me Your Hand" in the studio. She spoke about her spirituality, the music tradition from which she drew, and her involvement in civil rights struggles.[10]
In 1976, Odetta performed in the U.S. Bicentennial opera Be Glad Then, America by John La Montaine, as the Muse for America; with Donald Gramm, Richard Lewis and the Penn State University Choir and the Pittsburgh Symphony. The production was directed by Sarah Caldwell who was the director of the Opera Company of Boston at the time.
Odetta released two albums in the 20-year period from 1977 to 1997: Movin' It On, in 1987 and a new version of Christmas Spirituals, produced by Rachel Faro, in 1988.
Beginning in 1998, she began recording and touring. The new CD To Ella (recorded live and dedicated to her friend Ella Fitzgerald upon hearing of her death before walking on stage)[citation needed], was released in 1998 on Silverwolf Records, followed by three releases on M.C. Records in partnership with pianist/arranger/producer Seth Farber and record producer Mark Carpentieri. These included Blues Everywhere I Go, a 2000 Grammy-nominated blues/jazz band tribute album to the great lady blues singers of the 1920s and 1930s; Looking for a Home, a 2002 W.C. Handy Award-nominated band tribute to Lead Belly; and the 2007 Grammy-nominated Gonna Let It Shine, a live album of gospel and spiritual songs supported by Seth Farber and The Holmes Brothers. These recordings and active touring led to guest appearance on fourteen new albums by other artists between 1999 and 2006 and the re-release of 45 old Odetta albums and compilation appearances.
On September 29, 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts' National Medal of Arts. In 2004, Odetta was honored at the Kennedy Center with the "Visionary Award" along with a tribute performance by Tracy Chapman. In 2005, the Library of Congress honored her with its "Living Legend Award".
In mid-September 2001, Odetta performed with the Boys' Choir of Harlem on the Late Show with David Letterman, appearing on the first show after Letterman resumed broadcasting, having been off the air for several nights following the events of September 11; they performed "This Little Light of Mine".
The 2005 documentary film No Direction Home, directed by Martin Scorsese, highlights her musical influence on Bob Dylan, the subject of the documentary. The film contains an archive clip of Odetta performing "Waterboy" on TV in 1959, and we also hear Odetta's songs "Mule Skinner Blues" and "No More Auction Block for Me".
In 2006, Odetta opened shows for jazz vocalist Madeleine Peyroux, and in 2006 she toured the US, Canada, and Europe accompanied by her pianist, which included being presented by the US Embassy in Latvia as the keynote speaker at a Human Rights conference, and also in a concert in Riga's historic 1,000-year-old Maza Guild Hall. In December 2006, the Winnipeg Folk Festival honored Odetta with their "Lifetime Achievement Award". In February 2007, the International Folk Alliance awarded Odetta as "Traditional Folk Artist of the Year".
On March 24, 2007, a tribute concert to Odetta was presented at the Rachel Schlesinger Theatre by the World Folk Music Association with live performance and video tributes by Pete Seeger, Madeleine Peyroux, Harry Belafonte, Janis Ian, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Josh White, Jr., (Josh White) Peter, Paul and Mary, Oscar Brand, Tom Rush, Jesse Winchester, Eric Andersen, Wavy Gravy, David Amram, Roger McGuinn, Robert Sims, Carolyn Hester, Donal Leace, Marie Knight, Side by Side, and Laura McGhee (from Scotland).[11]
In 2007, Odetta's album Gonna Let It Shine was nominated for a Grammy, and she completed a major Fall Concert Tour in the "Songs of Spirit" show, which included artists from all over the world. She toured around North America in late 2006 and early 2007 to support this CD.[12]
Final tour
On January 21, 2008, Odetta was the keynote speaker at San Diego's Martin Luther King, Jr. commemoration, followed by concert performances in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, and Mill Valley, in addition to being the sole guest for the evening on PBS-TV's The Tavis Smiley Show.
Odetta was honored on May 8, 2008 at a historic tribute night,[13] hosted by Wavy Gravy, held at Banjo Jim's in the East Village.
In summer 2008, at the age of 77, she launched a North American tour, where she sang from a wheelchair.[14][15] Her set in later years included "This Little Light of Mine (I'm Gonna Let It Shine)",[16] Lead Belly's "The Bourgeois Blues",[16][17][18] "(Something Inside) So Strong", "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "House of the Rising Sun".[15]
She made an appearance on June 30, 2008, at The Bitter End on Bleecker Street, New York City for a Liam Clancy tribute concert. Her last big concert, before thousands of people, was in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on October 4, 2008, for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.[19] She last performed at Hugh's Room in Toronto on October 25.[19]
Death
In November 2008, Odetta's health began to decline and she began receiving treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. She had hoped to perform at Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009,[19][20] but on December 2, 2008, she died from heart disease in New York City.[19][21][22]
At her memorial service in February 2009 at Riverside Church in New York City, participants included Maya Angelou, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte, Geoffrey Holder, Steve Earle, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Peter Yarrow, Maria Muldaur,[23] Tom Chapin, Josh White, Jr. (son of Josh White), Emory Joseph, Rattlesnake Annie, the Brooklyn Technical High School Chamber Chorus, and videotaped tributes from Tavis Smiley and Joan Baez.[24]
Influence
Odetta influenced Harry Belafonte, who "cited her as a key influence" on his musical career;[19] Bob Dylan, who said, "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";[25] Joan Baez, who said "Odetta was a goddess. Her passion moved me. I learned everything she sang";[26] Janis Joplin, who "spent much of her adolescence listening to Odetta, who was also the first person Janis imitated when she started singing";[27] poet Maya Angelou who once said "If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time";[28] John Waters, whose original screenplay for Hairspray mentions her as an influence on beatniks;[29] and Carly Simon, who cited Odetta as a major influence, and talked about "going weak in the knees" when she had the opportunity to meet her in Greenwich Village.[30]
Discography
Further information: Odetta discography
Filmography
| Film/programme title | Info | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Cinerama Holiday | Film | 1955 |
| Lamp Unto My Feet | TV | 1956 |
| Tonight with Belafonte | TV/Musical Variety (Emmy Award) | 1959 |
| Toast of the Town | TV[31] | 1960 |
| Sanctuary | Drama[32] | 1961 |
| Have Gun – Will Travel episode 159/226: "The Hanging of Aaron Gibbs" | TV drama[33] | 1961 |
| Les Crane Show | TV/Talk/Variety | 1965 |
| Tennessee Ernie Ford Show | TV[34] Talk/Variety | 1965 |
| Festival | documentary film[35] | 1967 |
| Live from the Bitter End | TV – Concert | 1967 |
| Clown Town starring Odetta & Bobby Vinton | NBC Music Special | 1968 |
| The Dick Cavett Show | TV/Talk/Variety | 1969 |
| The Johnny Cash Show | TV/Musical Variety | 1969 |
| The Virginia Graham Show | TV[36] | 1971 |
| The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman | TV film | 1974 |
| Soundstage: Just Folks with Odetta, Tom Paxton, Josh White, Jr. and Bob Gibson | TV – Concert Special | 1980 |
| Ramblin': with Odetta | TV – Concert Special | 1981 |
| Chords of Fame | doc.[37] | 1984 |
| Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade | 1989 | |
| Boston Pops with Odetta, Shirley Verrett and Boys Choir of Harlem | TV – Concert | 1991 |
| Tommy Makem & Friends | TV – Concert | 1992 |
| The Fire Next Time | TV film[38] | 1993 |
| Turnabout: The Story of the Yale Puppeteers | doc.[39] | 1993 |
| Odetta: Woman In (E)motion | German TV – Concert Special | 1995 |
| Peter, Paul and Mary: Lifelines | TV[40] | 1996 |
| National Medal of Arts and Humanities Presentations | C-SPAN | 1999 |
| The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack | Drama[41] | 2000 |
| 21st Annual W.C. Handy Blues Awards | Awards ceremony[42] | 2000 |
| Songs for a Better World | TV – Concert Special | 2000 |
| Later... with Jools Holland with Odetta, and Bill Wyman & His Rhythm Kings | BBC-TV | 2001 |
| Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher | TV Talk Show | 2001 |
| Late Show with David Letterman | TV/Talk/Variety Show | 2001 |
| Pure Oxygen | TV – Talk Show | 2002 |
| Newport Folk Festival | TV – Concert Special | 2002 |
| Janis Joplin: Pieces of My Heart | BBC-TV Biography Special | 2002 |
| Get Up, Stand Up: The Story of Pop and Protest |
doc.[43] | 2003 |
| Tennessee Ernie Ford Show | TV Musical Variety (Re-Broadcast) | 2003 |
| Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey | PBS-TV Biography | 2003 |
| Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin | PBS-TV Biography | 2003 |
| Visionary Awards Presentation | PBS-TV Award Presentation | 2004 |
| Lightning in a Bottle – Salute to the Blues | doc. | 2004 |
| No Direction Home | doc. | 2005 |
| Talking Bob Dylan Blues | BBC-TV Concert Special | 2005 |
| Odetta: Blues Diva | PBS-TV Concert Special | 2005 |
| Odetta: Viss Notiek | Latvian TV Weekly Journal | 2006 |
| A Tribute to the Teachers of America | PBS-TV Special: Concert at The Town Hall, New York City Odetta sings a children's song medley of "Rock Island Line/Here We Go Looptie-Lou/Bring Me Little Water Sylvie" |
2007 |
| The Tavis Smiley Show | PBS-TV Discussion and performance of the song "Keep on Movin' It On" | January 25, 2008 |
| Mountain Stage HD: John Hammond, Odetta, and Jorma Kaukonen | PBS-TV Concert Special | 2008 |
| Odetta Remembers | BBC Four interview and concert footage, 30 mins[44] | February 6, 2009 |
| The Yellow Bittern | A Biopic of Liam Clancy of The Clancy Brothers | 2009 |
See also
 |
References
- BBC Four Programmes: Odetta Remembers February 23, 2009
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Odetta. |
- Odetta Vanguard Records
- Odetta's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
- AP Obituary in The New York Times
