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Folk singer and civil rights icon Odetta died yesterday (December 2) of heart disease, according to The New York Times. She was 77 years old.

Odetta, born Odetta Holmes, began her professional singing career on the West Coast in 1950, with an appearance in the musical Finian's Rainbow. She was trained in musical theater and classical music, but her interests led her to the San Francisco folk scene, where she got her start performing in coffeehouses.

Odetta's career was six decades long, and the artists she influenced included Janis Joplin and Joan Baez. In a 1978 interview Bob Dylan said, "The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta," according to The New York Times.

Odetta's participation in the civil rights movement led her to sing at the March on Washington in 1963, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

In 1999, President Clinton gave Odetta the National Endowment for the Arts Medal of the Arts and Humanities. According to The New York Times, her manager Doug Yeager said she had hoped to sing next month at Barack Obama's inauguration.

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