On July 17, 1965, the “Queen of American folk music” (per Martin Luther King, Jr.), Odetta, covered all the emotional bases and fought off nature’s challenges in a performance at the Berkshire Music Barn in Lenox.

Odetta Returns to Barn With Power, Beat, Impact

By R.C. Hammerich for The Morning Union.

LENOX – Odetta was back in the Music Barn Saturday afternoon, singing folk songs with her big, round, beautiful voice.

The Difference

She is not really a folk singer. She is a singer of folk songs. There’s a difference. 

She didn’t come out of the backwoods with her head full of neighborhood ballads, a beat-up banjo in her hand.

She started with a superior mezzo-soprano voice, took it to music school, trained it, and uses it now to sing all manner of folk songs from many ages and places with skill and impact.

Dramatic Songs

As illustrated Saturday, she likes to sing the dramatic songs, the songs of work, prison, protest and tragedy. And she likes the comic songs and lullabies.

On Saturday her rich voice often asked too much of the amplifying system, and some of her dramatic power was lost in electronic distortion.

Some, also, was lost in the normal distractions of an afternoon recital … visible motion in the surrounding audience and the occasional wail of a child.

Wind and Rain

Saturday, also, there was wind and rain on the canvas roof to be overcome. A strong beginning of “Deep River” was destroyed by a frightened chipmunk that scurried up and down an aisle and set the audience giggling.

And some of Odetta’s usual theatrical effect was lost by her own increasingly (since a year ago) garbled diction. The announcements of titles, too, were not understandable.

Most of her songs were narrative tales set to melody. Half of their value is in the understanding of the story. Nearly none of Odetta’s words were understandable Saturday.

But with all that to quibble about, she still gave an impressive performance. Even without the words, the music has plenty of emotional substance.

Her shouting and crying songs were full of anger and fear, her moans full of anguish, her lovely lullabies full of love.

Her rich and resonant deep tones, not often used, were enhanced by their scarcity, and her driving propulsion frequently carried the audience along with a strongly rhythmic beat.

Not counting the distractions, Odetta was still up there with the best of them Saturday.