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.