According to the Internet source given below, Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil and human rights activist born in Birmingham, Alabama.
Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she influenced many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music.
She died in New York.

Websites:
	Odetta	Biography by wikipedia.org.