4. OdettaOdetta At Carnegie Hall

I love this record because Odetta is a hero to me, she is such a fantastic storyteller, such a fantastic civil rights activist. She’s a name that gets kind of buried sometimes in the history of folk music or gospel music. I think that she deserves a bit more credit than she has certainly. Particularly the final track on this record, her singing ‘Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down’ which is a Brother Claude Ely song that he recorded, or wrote, when he was about ten years old. The way that she does it is a cappella with a chorus backing her and she kind of seems to improvise the entire song and changes the lyrics completely and gives it a completely different context. I just, I love that. That’s one of her great strengths, I think, that she is just able to take songs that other people have written and give them so much depth and really make them her own. I think she’s a fantastic vocalist and storyteller.