How Odetta Turned Bob Dylan Onto Folk and Recast the Genre

Tina Benitez-Eves

March 22, 2025

American Songwriter

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“If I had to pick one person responsible for the establishment of the Newport Folk Festival in 1959,” said the festival founder George Weing, “it would be Odetta.” After hearing her album Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, Bob Dylan said he put down his electric guitar and went acoustic. “Right then and there,” said Dylan in a 1978 interview with Playboy. “I went out and traded my electric guitar and amplifier for an acoustical guitar, a flat-top Gibson.”

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Black and white image of a Black woman singing into a microphone while playing an acoustic guitar, eyes closed, expression passionate.

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Odetta, Newport Folk Festival, The Tin Angel, Civil Rights

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