''Gonna Let It Shine: A Concert for the Holidays'' (or simply ''Gonna Let It Shine''), is a

live album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

folk singer Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...

Odetta Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...

, released in 2005. It was recorded at

Fordham University Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

for a public

radio broadcast Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio sta ...

. ''Gonna Let It Shine'' was nominated for a

Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album The Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album was awarded from 1983 to 2011 and from 2017 onwards. Until 1992 the award was known as Best Traditional Blues Performance and was twice awarded to individual tracks rather than albums. The award w ...

. It was the last album of new material that Odetta would release during her lifetime.

Track listing

All songs Traditional unless otherwise noted. #"Intro" – 3:42 #"

This Little Light of Mine "This Little Light of Mine" is a popular gospel song of unknown origin. It was often reported to be written for children in the 1920s by Harry Dixon Loes, but he never claimed credit for the original version of the song, and the Moody Bible Ins ...

" (Harry Loes) – 5:43 #"Rise Up Shepherd" – 3:22 #"Mary Had a Baby" – 2:33 #"What Month Was Jesus Born In?" – 1:46 #"Shout for Joy" – 2:20 #"Virgin Mary Had One Son" – 3:17 #"Down by the Riverside" – 4:06 #"Poor Little Jesus" – 2:15 #"Freedom Trilogy: Oh Freedom/Come & Go with Me/I'm on My Way" – 6:32 #"Somebody Talking 'Bout Jesus" – 1:40 #"Keep on Movin' It On" (Odetta Gordon) – 2:02 #"O Jerusalem" (Athena, Faro, Traditional) – 3:33 #"If Anybody Asks You" (Gordon) – 5:22 #"Midnight Special" (

Huddie Ledbetter Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the folk standa ...

) – 4:54 #"This Little Light of Mine" – 4:41

Personnel

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

*Seth Farber – piano *

The Holmes Brothers The Holmes Brothers were an American musical trio originally from Christchurch, Virginia. Mixing sounds from blues, soul, gospel, country, and rhythm & blues, they have released twelve studio albums, with three reaching the top 5 on the ''Billb ...

– background vocals

Production notes

*Engineered by Fred Guarino *Liner notes by Bernice Johnson Reagon and Odetta *Executive producers – Catherine and Mark Carpentieri

References

{{Authority control Odetta live albums 2005 live albums