Now Hear This

In my post about Studs Terkel’s passing I lamented the fact the he’d just missed the election of our nation’s first black president. Now another crusader for civil rights will miss Obama’s inauguration. Odetta, who passed way Tuesday, was scheduled to perform at that historic event. That surely would have been something to see. I found better pictures of her but none seemed as appropriate as the the shot above of her performing before the crowd assembled at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, singing into the same microphones that would broadcast Martin Luther King’s dream.

Another Man Don’ Gone

This is a previously unreleased track from the reissue of Odetta & Larry (retitled The Tin Angel after the nightclub in San Francisco where it was recorded live back in 1953). Her passionate delivery even at that early stage is riveting. Goodbye Odetta.