Odetta

Odetta Holmes, known simply as Odetta, was one of the most influential voices of the American folk revival and a civil rights activist whose powerful contralto voice and commanding stage presence inspired Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, and countless others. Martin Luther King Jr. called her 'the Queen of American Folk Music.' Born in Birmingham and raised in Los Angeles, she trained as a classical singer before discovering folk music in San Francisco. Her early albums for Tradition, Vanguard, and Riverside blended blues, spirituals, work songs, and folk ballads with an operatic power that was unprecedented in the folk world. She was a frequent participant in civil rights marches and benefit concerts throughout the 1960s.