Sings Folk Songs

About

One of the more commercially successful albums of Odetta’s mostly commercially unsuccessful career, this 1963 collection of folk songs is softened slightly by the presence of Greenwich Village icon Bruce Langhorne on guitar and jazz bassist Victor Sprole. In contrast to most of her previous outing, the album’s opener “900 Mile,” for example, is almost danceable, as is her bright signature take on “This Little Light of Mine”—both given levity by the bigger backing band and accompanying groove. Odetta’s usual collection of traditional tunes included a couple of anomalies: a buttoned-up version of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” (she would record an entire Dylan tribute album a couple years later) and a jazzy take on the traditional song “This Little Light of Mine,” which was already well on its way to becoming a protest anthem. The latter would become one of her signature, a timele, exuberant expression of liberation. It is now associated with children’s music as well as social justice movement, but another entry on the album actually addresses children specifically: “Why Oh Why,” a humorous ode to kids who won’t go to bed. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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