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We were saddened to learn last week about the death, at the age of 77, of Odetta, a legend in the music world, and in the civil rights movement. Once a winter term faculty member at Middlebury, Odetta received an honorary doctor of arts degree from the College during commencement in 1990.
In honoring Odetta, then-President Olin Robison said, “From the coffee houses of the West Coast to the major concert stages of the world, you have provided through your songs a vision of the people who make up America. With the heart beat of your guitar, you have given new meaning to the songs of our childhood, turning simple folk tunes into powerful anthems of a new age. For more than 40 years, through jazz, folk, rock, reggae and other musical movements, you have persisted as a musical and spiritual force providing strength to movements and spirit to generations. You are a unique artist, combining the qualities of politician, actress, minister, philosopher and teacher, and you have already make a mark on this College. Today we welcome you into the distinguished ranks of Middlebury College’s family.”
Odetta’s voice and wisdom will be sorely missed, here at Middlebury and around the world. You can learn more about her life, and listen to her music, at the National Public Radio archives.
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December 11, 2008 at 11:30 am
Dan Bessie
Only a few of the memorials honoring Odetta record that she actually got her start at my uncle Harry’s Turnabout Theater in Hollywood, during the late 1940s. Odetta’s mom was the cleaning woman at the theater, and Odetta, who came in on weekends to help her mother with the dusting, could instead often be found listening to Harry’s opera records. And singing along with them. When Harry discovered this, he, recognizing her talent, paid for her singing lessons.
In my 1992 video, TURNABOUT, THE STORY OF THE YALE PUPPETEERS, Odetta says that it was her experience at Turnabout Theater that turned her life around; and she attributes her later success to the start that Harry and the Turnabout Theater offered her. Another thing she mentioned to me is that she was one of the first to have her hair done in the “Afro” style, and that originally the cut was called an “Odetta” !
Odetta was also a roommate of my first wife, Rose, and when Rose and I married she came to our wedding reception in my mother’s small Santa Monica apartment, where she sang songs for more than an hour. (Interestingly, since I didn’t see my uncle Harry very often during those years, it wasn’t until much later that I discovered she’d been working at Turnabout Theater.)
Though I saw her infrequently over the years, Odetta was a good friend. She and her immense talent will be sorely missed.
Dan Bessie / danbes@volcano.net