Sings Ballads & Blues Early album collection

Description

Odetta was born in 1930 in Alabama and died in 2008 in New York. She was a singer, actress, guitarist, composer, and human rights activist, often nicknamed “the Voice of the Civil Rights Movement.” Her musical repertoire consists mainly of Folk, Blues, Jazz, and spirituals. She is one of the key figures in 1950s and 1960s Folk and Blues music, and influenced many artists, such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Janis Joplin. Starting in 1950, she focused on Folk songs. She gradually became known by performing all across the United States: at the Blue Angel Nightclub (New York), the Hungry I (San Francisco), and the Tin Angel (San Francisco), where she recorded in 1954, with Larry Mohr, Odetta and Larry, on Fantasy Records. She then pursued a solo career, with Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues (1956) and At the Gate of Horn (1957). Odetta Sings Folk Songs was one of the best-selling folk albums of 1963.