Odetta - Odetta and The Blues [VMP]

New Vinyl 

888072455191

Vinyl Me, Please Classics

A1        Hard, Oh Lord    
A2        Believe I’ll Go    
A3        Oh, Papa    
A4        How Long Blues    
A5        Hogan’s Alley    
A6        Leavin’ This Mornin’    
B1        Oh, My Babe    
B2        Yonder Come The Blues    
B3        Make Me A Pallet On The Floor    
B4        Weeping Willow Blues    
B5        Go Down Sunshine    
B6        Nobody Knows When You’re Down And Out    

The songs that populate Odetta and the Blues are 1920s blues and jazz standards sung by the likes of Bessie Smith, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Mississippi John Hurt, Leroy Carr and other titans of the time and genre. Most are traditional, unattributable to any one songwriter — but all are linked to Black musicians. In this way, the album feels like an important (and understandable) aspect of Odetta’s quest to show America the myriad ways this country’s music wouldn’t be what it is without Black Americans.

Odetta makes each track sound timeless and true, but also utterly, entirely her own. I think that’s the hallmark of a true and truly unique talent — and a sign that the artist in question understands the assignment, as it were: to find the throughlines between their perspective and the art itself; to preserve the original message and add one of your own, like a constructive game of Telephone. There’s an art to being a cover artist and an art to being an archivist.