American folk singer who was noted especially for her versions of spirituals (spiritual) and who became for many the voice of the civil rights movement of the early 1960s.

After her father's death in 1937, Odetta moved with her mother to Los Angeles. She began classical voice training at age 13, and she earned a degree in classical music from Los Angeles City College. Though she had heard the music of the Deep South as a child, it was not until 1950, on a trip to San Francisco, that she began to appreciate and participate in the emergent folk scene. She soon learned to play the guitar and began to perform traditional songs. Her distinctive blend of folk (folk music), blues, ballads, and spirituals was powered by her rich vocal style, wide range, and deep passion. Within a few years her career took off. In the early 1950s she moved to New York City, where she met singers Pete Seeger (Seeger, Pete) and Harry Belafonte (Belafonte, Harry), who became loyal supporters. Her debut solo recording, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues (1956), was soon followed by At the Gate of Horn (1957). Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (Dylan, Bob) later said that hearing Odetta on record “turned me on to folk singing.” She performed at the Newport (R.I.) Folk Festival four times during 1959–65, and she subsequently appeared on television and in several films.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Odetta continued to record as a leading folk musician—although recordings did not do her performances justice. Her music and her politics suited the growing civil rights movement, and in 1963 she sang at the historic March on Washington led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (King, Martin Luther, Jr.) Inevitably, as the movement waned and interest in folk music declined, Odetta's following shrank, although she continued to perform. In 1999 Pres. Bill Clinton (Clinton, Bill) awarded her the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given in the arts in the United States, and in 2003 she was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress.