At Town Hall

Performer: Odetta
Distributor: Welk

Notes: Personnel: Odetta (vocals, guitar); Bill Lee (acoustic bass). Includes original release liner notes by Maynard Solomon. Having begun her career on the coffeehouse circuit in the '50s, singer-guitarist Odetta Gordon was always at her best in front of an appreciative audience, and this 16-track, 52-minute album recorded at New York City's Town Hall in late 1962 is among the highlights in her long career. Backed only by her own acoustic guitar and the solid yet unobtrusive bass work of Bill Lee--filmmaker Spike Lee's father--Odetta performs folk standards, blues classics, work songs, and spirituals, all with a quiet, proud reserve rather akin to that of Paul Robeson. While there's a playful undertone to a couple of the blues tunes, the stirring passion of the set's pointed closer, "Freedom Trilogy," reminds listeners of the strong ties between the collegiate folk revival of the early '60s and the concurrent civil rights movement. While never stridently political, the songs on ODETTA AT TOWN HALL definitely get their point across.

Taking inspiration from classic blues singers and folk troubadours of the 1930s and '40s and predating the folk boom of the '60s, Odetta remains one of the most important yet often overlooked artists of the American musical tradition. Her unique, politically charged fusion of blues, traditional Negro spirituals, and American folk songs was a profound influence on a generation of artists from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to Tracy Chapman. Odetta continued to perform well after her heyday, remaining both fiercely political and artistically engaging.

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