Review: Odetta - At The Gate Of Horn (1957)
Tracks: 1) He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands; 2) Sail Away Ladies, Sail Away; 3) The Gallows Pole; 4) Lowlands; 5) The Fox; 6) Maybe She Go; 7) The Lass From The Low Countree; 8) Timber; 9) Deep River; 10) Chilly Winds; 11) Greensleeves; 12) Devilish Mary; 13) All The Pretty Little Horses; 14) The Midnight Special; 15) Take This Hammer.
REVIEW
The album title is quite misleading: although Odetta did, in fact, perform in Chicago’s famous Gate of Horn folk club, by the time this album was released she was long out of Chicago — in fact, the whole thing was allegedly recorded at Esoteric Studios in New York City, so Almost Kinda Like At The Gate Of Horn, But No Cigar would have been a far more appropriate title, but hey, what one wouldn’t do to sell an extra few copies to mythology-hungry fans. Besides, At The Gate Of Horn certainly has that sort of ring to it, right? Sort of like a mix between at the Gates of Heaven and at Cape Horn, both only too suitable given how Odetta is both the St. Peter and the Magellan of the American folk movement at the same time.
Sound-wise, the only — though significant — difference between this record and its predecessor is Odetta’s addition of Bill Lee on bass guitar: Bill (who is, by the way, the father of Spike Lee and has composed quite a few soundtracks for his son’s movies) was a prominent figure around the acoustic folk circuit at the time, and he and Odetta would stick together for at least 5–6 years before parting ways. This sudden appearance of an extra bass guitar was probably intended to give Odetta’s performances that extra «bottom», a touch of sonic heaviness, earthy grittiness, doom, gloom, and whatever else rhymes with ‑oom. I am, however, not entirely certain that this was a good choice, because the goddamn bass is so loud sometimes that it totally muffles Odetta’s acoustic picking and even upstages her vocals; the result is that there is some slight loss of that precious intimacy which was so important about her first record. (It may not be so coincidental that Dylan would be a bigger fan of the first album, and that, with one or two exceptions, his early acoustic recordings would always be just Bob and his guitar, with nothing else to take the attention away from either).
As for the material, this is precisely the same mix of ye olde British folk, ye-not-so-olde American folk, and occasional samples of blues and spirituals as before. Arguably the only song that genuinely stands out is ‘The Fox’, largely because it is an old comic ballad and it gives Odetta a chance to engage in some lightweight vocal clownery — she does an awesome quack-quack-quack, might I note — to dilute a bit the overall solemn atmosphere. But nobody would probably want to select it as an intentional highlight: instead, that honor must rather go to something like John Jacob Niles’ ‘The Lass From The Low Countree’, if only for the sheer length (four and a half minutes) and the tragic flow of Odetta’s "oh sorrow, sing sorrow" vocals. (This is, by the way, one of the few numbers here without the accompanying bass).
In order to write a more detailed review, you have to have a far more serious passion for folk music than your humble servant’s, because I probably fail to notice the many nuances that distinguish one of these ballads from any other. I do admire the way she can transform everything, be it a medieval British minstrel song or a modern-era Leadbelly work song, into the exact same «Odetta aria», but, unfortunately, this kind of deprives the tunes from individual personality: when your ‘Midnight Special’ becomes the same kind of operatic prayer as your ‘Greensleeves’, you might gain a whole new level of appreciation for the differences between Creedence Clearwater Revival and Fairport Convention. This is by no means to discredit the power, the subtlety, and the overall class of Odetta’s delivery — but once you have expressed your admiration for her overall style (which was done in the previous review), you are left with nothing to write about other than the songs themselves, and just how fun is it to write about the lyrics of medieval English ballads in the context of a performance by a mid-20th century folk performer?
Still, just so we can end this on a special note, I must state that Odetta’s ‘Take This Hammer’, closing the record, is one of the most vocally powerful renditions of the song I have heard — and that Odetta’s heavily snorted "haah"s are easily the most disturbing "haah"s ever, as if she were conveying the idea that all the prisoners working on the chain gang were slowly dying of TB or something. Overall, it would have been nice to hear her do more of these rowdy work songs, as well as gospel material — her voice is just so better suited to anthemic, «burly» songs like these than to romantic or murder ballads. But it’s not as if that would help to make the songs more distinctive, and it’s not as if she cannot properly handle sentimental material, either, so this is not so much a complaint as an unconstructive criticism for the sake of criticizing.
Only Solitaire: Odetta review page