Odetta, 77; Sang the Soundtrack for the Civil Rights Movement

Odetta had hoped to sing at Barack Obama's inauguration, her manager said. (By Juana Arias -- The Washington Post)
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In addition, it was her voice, with the passion and the soulfulness it conveyed, that was often said to sound in the ears of those who marched, picketed and protested in other ways during the era of the great civil rights demonstrations.

Years after the historic 1963 March on Washington, she was remembered as having sung from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after an introduction by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

She was born in Birmingham, Ala., and grew up in Los Angeles, where she studied music at Los Angeles City College. She received classical training in voice and began making professional appearances in musical theater as a teenager.

As a member of a touring company of "Finian's Rainbow," she found herself in San Francisco at the time of the folk music revival. Falling in with folk performers, she adopted the folk genre for herself.

Starting in the early 1950s, her impressive voice, ranging from soprano to baritone, could be heard in nightclubs and on records, giving a special feeling to the words of folk songs, old and new.

Through these songs, she once said, she became increasingly familiar with and passionate about the struggle of the deprived and oppressed, and with the efforts of black people to gain their rights.

Students of music regarded her most prolific period as the 1960s; in those years at least 15 albums were released, according to one biographical Web site. Among them were "Odetta at Carnegie Hall," "Christmas Spirituals," "Odetta and the Blues," "It's a Mighty World" and "Odetta Sings Dylan."

With some reluctance, she dropped her surname, Felious, at the suggestion of a club manager who claimed it was too difficult to pronounce. She acted in movies and on television, and received such honors as the National Medal of Arts, which was presented to her by President Bill Clinton.

She was married three times; two of the marriages ended in divorce.