My dad took me to Ravinia to hear Odetta sing when I was a little boy and I could never get her voice out of my head. She is one powerful singer.
Odetta Holmes was trained in Opera singing in high school and college in LA, but instead of going into Opera she sang backstage for a puppet theater in Hollywood. She sang folk songs and sang the Blues in San Fransisco and then appeared on television with Harry Belafonte in 1959.
Harry belafonte was smooth, but Odetta would have "none of that".
The song "A hole in the bucket" is a simple song, but Odetta and Harry Belafonte's performance is the most convincing and entertaining version I have ever seen.
It's even better than the Flander's and Swann version:
"There's a hole in the budget."
This song was written by Bob Dorough and Stuart Scharf in 1968. It is called the "Theme song of the New York Urban Coalition". Today that is the New York Urban League providing education and opportunities for "Black America".
Watch a 1970 commercial from the New York City Urban Coalition here and learn to give a damn.
Odetta invites us to take a trip with her through the Ghetto and asks us to: "Give a damn." Her voice caries us through vivid images. The song reminds me of stories my mom told me about how the neighborhood went up in flame after the news reports of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's death. Odetta's song does not provoke anger, instead it invites us to share and to give a damn about our fellow man.
Fourteen years ago on Easter 2008, Odetta sang, "Glory Hallelujah" at the Garrison Institute for innovative change. Eight month's later she died of heart disease just missing her performance at Obama's inauguration.
Before Odetta begins to sing, she quotes a Hindi word: "Satyagraha".
The word means "hold firmly to the truth" or "truth force".
Odetta's voice was an instrument of nonviolent civil resistance and Satyagraha.
Her voice is filled with hope and strength even the last year of her life. She put her hope in something greater.
There was no AI used in this article and the pictures are from my own camera 
Check out last week's picks here.
wait...
I'm not leaving that easily.
There is one song that Odetta would like to be remembered by. She sang this last song at an interview with the New York Times the day she was taken to be with her mother.
