Search - Odetta :: Gonna Let It Shine, A Concert For The Holidays

The incomparable folk and blues great, Odetta, a living legend and national treasure who marched with Dr. King, performed for Presidents Kennedy and Clinton, and inspired a young Bob Dylan, gives a superlative live performance on her CD Gonna Let It Shine: A Concert for the Holidays, a collection of spirituals.

Recorded live in the music hall at New York City s Fordham University, the influential public radio station WFUV sponsored the evening s concert and the station s music director Rita Houston, hosted the show. The Holmes Brothers and pianist Seth Farber support Odetta on the 16 tracks, most of which are from the African American Christmas song tradition, with additional selections from the spirituals and prison song repertoire.

In her liner notes for the package, Bernice Johnson Reagon, of the pioneering a cappella group Sweet Honey in The Rock, calls Gonna Let It Shine a rare and beautiful marker in this extraordinary cultural journey stretching more than six decades.

Odetta s voice is different in some ways. There s a richness, subtlety and a vulnerability that wasn t there 40 years ago, notes Mark Carpentieri, the project s producer. I think as a musician she is, remarkably, still growing. This performance is reminiscent of her classic 60s live albums. She has the power and the range and there is such vocal clarity. When you talk about genius, you talk about Odetta.

Mary Had a Baby, What Month Was Jesus Born In?, Shout for Joy, and Virgin Mary Had One Son, are beautifully uplifting songs that both celebrate the arrival of the new baby as the hope of the world while transcending modern religious and cultural boundaries. Some of these carols sound like lullabies and others like What Month Was Jesus Born In?, are teaching play songs. Odetta s commentary throughout the performance provides context as she speaks to the audience about the meaning of these songs to those who were bound in slavery, the catalyst that brought forth the creation and singing of these songs.

Also included on the album is Freedom Trilogy a medley of spirituals with some text changes by Odetta. Oh Freedom, Come and Go With Me to That Land, and I m on My Way, served as frontline freedom songs during the intense campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. They are rendered here with Odetta s fine gift for vocal phrasing over Farber s moving piano line. Somebody Talking Bout Jesus, one of Odetta s signature songs is followed by Keep on Moving It On Odetta s freedom anthem, calling all within the sound of her voice to act, to not be immobile, but to move forward.