What is "odetta"

Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a civil and human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she influenced many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Time included her song " Take This Hammer" on its list of the All-Time 100 Songs, stating that " Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music."

Odetta is a 1963 compilation album by American folk singer Odetta. Odetta is the first official compilation of Odetta songs. It features songs from The Tin Angel, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, At the Gate of Horn and Odetta At Town Hall although not necessarily versions from those albums.

It had a poorer reputation than the above-mentioned original albums, being seen as thrown-together by the label. This LP has subsequently not been released on CD like those three albums. As a result, this album is rarer than most Odetta releases; the album is sometimes quoted as being released on "01-01-63", but this is probably not true, and rather a result of computer-automation on one music website which led to others quoting it as fact.

Odetta is the 1967 album by Odetta. It is viewed as one of her most "commercial" (that is, aimed at mainstream audiences), but it has not subsequently been re-released on CD as many of her other albums were.

It should not be confused with other self-titled albums by Odetta on different labels: the 1963 compilation LP Odetta on the Everest label and 2003's Odetta which is actually the album To Ella.

Odetta may refer to:

• Odetta Holmes, (1930–2008), an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement"
• Three albums by the singer named Odetta (or been given this as the default name), on different record labels:
  • Odetta (Everest album), a 1963 compilation
  • Odetta (Folkways album), Odetta's 1967 studio album
  • Odetta (Silverwolf album), an alternative title for 1998's To Ella, recorded live at Kerrville, Texas
• Susannah Odetta Holmes Dean (also referred to as Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker), a fictional character from Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.

Odetta is a genus of small sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the subfamily Odostomiinae, which is a voluminous taxon of minute marine gastropods with a heterostrophic protoconch.