'Twas the Season

Odetta: Christmas Spirituals
Vanguard, Stereolab, VSD-2079
Printed in U.S.A., 1960

The following text is from 'Tis the Season that I wrote for Berry's Top 100 in 2010. I was still in Ohio then and bought the Odetta record at the Family Store in Cleveland.

      'Tis the season for thrift stores to organize their records. Once a year the Christmas records are separated from the secular records. I enjoy this, it makes it easy, I only need to browse through a considerable smaller selection to try to find something I like than I do the rest of the year. So why did I browse through the bin with Christmas records the other day? God only knows but there she was, the embodiment of the Afro-American presence in the 60s folk scene in America: Odetta. A Christmas record indeed, the songs are all 'Negro-Spirituals' and most songs are about the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus. The song Virgin Mary Had One Son may very well end up in the Top 100 and become the first ever Christmas song in the Top 100 history. God bless Odetta. The album is called Odetta: Christmas Spirituals and was released by Vanguard.