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They will tell you that she had a voice hard as rock and dark as the earth.
That she was as imposing as a mountain. And that her face was that of a little bird.
That "her smile melted diamonds." And that everyone, absolutely everyone, fell in love with her.
But I remember that time when, eyes closed, she invoked the water boy, I remember her passion, her superhuman concentration...
And then that guitar, nothing more than a rhythmic spasm here and there.
And I remember that scream...
That scream she suddenly started doing to punctuate the verses, something so heart-wrenching, so wild. A howl, a lament (something I can't quite articulate) and if you hear it, you'll never forget it.
One could spend a thousand words on it, indeed, one shouldn’t talk about anything else, but maybe it's better to say nothing, it’s understood all the same, right?
And anyway, the water boy is a reference to the great thirst of black workers in the cotton fields.
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“Odetta sings Dylan,” is one of those works that ventures into the realm of great measure, namely the most necessary science when the matter is to offer words.
It's about (or it would be about), to make everything go as it should and say what needs to be said in the right way, blowing away everything that weighs.
A diction imbued with a sort of natural authority, imagine. Reaching a kind of limit by maximizing the relationship between word and sound.
Don't think it's calculation though, because if it were calculation, it would be coldness. It's something you either have or you don't. And Odetta had it, not only because of her voice, but for soul or attitude.
And so Dylan's songs never had a better dress, so much so that the words seem carved in stone...
And the music then, the music is an absolute wonder, a folk/blues played with an almost jazz spirit, as if it were a union of every possible sound of the soul. Arpeggio after arpeggio, drop after drop, it proceeds by accumulation among guitar inlays, crystal perfection, and dark depth.
Sure, the absolute folk purity is missing, the water boy is missing, but the album, at times, is of an almost transcendental beauty.
“Masters of war” and “Mr. Tambourine man” are the most impressive tracks. In the first, a mournful classicism leans on a hypnotic guitar vortex. The second is instead a crazy folk jazz capable of anticipating (the album is from '65) even the Tim Buckley of “Happy Sad.”
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Dylan's cult for Odetta is quite a well-known matter, everyone knows about the electric turn, few about the acoustic one. But Dylan as a young man was a rocker and it was right after listening to Odetta that he decided to become a folk singer.
I, on the other hand, discovered her recently, finding online the writing of a guy who, unable to define her essence, resorts to the old trick of the list. And since I like lists a lot, I'll report it to you literally.
Odetta was (is) (and always will be): “extraordinary, fascinating, angelic, musical, colorful, bright, sweet, heart-wrenching, enchanting, magical, bluesy, folksy, spiritual, witty, smiling, deep, light, rhythmic, baritonal, acute, murmuring, moving, unique.”
What do you say, is that enough?
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