Odetta - Odetta Sings Folk Songs (1963) vinyl

If any one phrase could sum up the art of Odetta, that phrase might be "mastery of mood." When the great folk singer from Los Angeles, California, first appeared on the folk scene in the mid-nineteen fifties, it was the power and size of her voice that caused the greatest stir among her listeners.

But this album will reveal still another facet of her vast catalog of interpretive talents. Here is Odetta in her most relaxed and lyrical vein. Power gives way to poetry. The majority of the songs show her in a reflective, almost introspective, frame of mind. It is her "mastery of mood" that re-creates a gallery of characters in the English-language folk idiom - the spurned girl, the inquisitive child, the poignantly sad mother, the exultant worshipper, the detached storyteller, and many more.

Odetta is a tireless student. Her inquiries into the background of her music fascinate her. This component of her art yields a series of rich portraits, Odetta's debut on RCA Victor was the magnificent blues album SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE CRYIN' (LPM/LSP-2573). Now, showing herself not to be a singer who is easily typed, she ranges far and wide in many moods and idioms.

If versatility is the keynote of Odetta's repertoire, it has also been a pillar of her performing career, in singing and acting. Night clubs, concerts, festivals, radio, television, films in America and Europe have been her working ground. The Library of Congress has been one of her sources of research. She has appeared with large choruses and with the Symphony of the Air. But mostly she is a solo voice, a large and significant voice that can swell with majesty, phrase delicately, dipping deep into the bottomless well of folk song.

In January 1~63, Odetta won wide critical acclaim for her appearance on the television special, "Dinner with the President." An impressive roster of singers shared the program with her at the event sponsored by the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League in Washington. As is typical of this large-boned woman with a guitar, Odetta was to make an unforgettable impact, despite the high level of her colleagues' performances.

A word about the songs in this album: 900 Miles is a trad-American folk song, embodying the great symbol of frontier, loneliness and movement that the railroad has meant in our people's experience. Blowing in the Wind is a song by the celebrated 21-year-old Bob Dylan a deeply poetic call for humanity in an often inhumane world.

The old silver thread of despairing, rejected love runs through the fabric of I Never. Will Marry, Yes I See is Bob Gibson's reworking of a jubilant old gospel song, alive with the rhythms of hope and joy. Shenandoah venerates the American landscape and its stately rivers. The whimsical world of Woody Guthrie, who knows the workings of children's minds better than almost any adult song writer of our time, is displayed in the playful Why Oh Why.

The Golden Vanity is a venerable Anglo-American story-song or ballad, which Odetta has recast, giving it a freshness and new vision. An unsentimental air of sadness pervades, Roberta (Let Your Hair Hang Low). In another mood is the Mexican-inspired Maybe She Go.

Another contemporary song, reflecting the widespread urge for world peace, is Anthem of the Rainbow by two young Chicago song writers, Forrest Tollis and Robert Cosbey, Jr. From the Bahamas has come one of the greatest lyric plaints in the English language, All My Trials. But it is a mood of affirmation that ends this program, with the traditional Negro spiritual This Little Light of Mine propelled by the uninhibited hand clapping of Odetta.

Accompanying the singer are Bruce Langhorne on second guitar and Victor Sproles on bass.

Tracklist:
01. Odetta - 900 Miles
02. Odetta - Blowing in the Wind
03. Odetta - Maybe She Go
04. Odetta - I Never Will Marry
05. Odetta - Yes I See
06. Odetta - Why Oh Why
07. Odetta - Shenandoah
08. Odetta - The Golden Vanity
09. Odetta - Roberta
10. Odetta - Anthem of the Rainbow
11. Odetta - All My Trials
12. Odetta - This Little Light of Mine