Odetta

Odetta is the kind of figure I think gets undersold in casual music history, even though her fingerprints are everywhere. Being called the Voice of the Civil Rights Movement isn't hyperbole; her command of folk, blues, spirituals and that guitar gave protest a spine you could feel. What moves me is that she treated American roots music as living testimony rather than nostalgia, and you can hear her echo in everyone who picked up an acoustic guitar after her. The National Medal of Arts and the Living Legend honor feel almost like footnotes to the influence itself. To me, she's foundational, not merely historical.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Odetta

Name (Japanese)

オデッタ

Reading

おでった

Born

December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008

Origin

Birmingham, Alabama, United States

Occupation

singer / actor / guitarist / television actor / songwriter

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Horse

High school

Belmont High School

University

Los Angeles City College

Awards & achievements

• National Medal of Arts
• War Resisters League Peace Award
• Library of Congress Living Legend

• Official sitehttp://www.odettamusic.com/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odetta
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AA%E3%83%87%E3%83%83%E3%82%BF
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q237633

Tags

• Alabama
• singer
• actor
• guitarist

Last updated

September 18, 2026

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.