Odetta, 1930-2008. “Some folks sing songs,” writes Richard Corliss in Time. “Odetta testified.” But Corliss gets one thing wrong: Odetta didn’t just want to “sing black truth to white power,” she wanted to sing truth to whoever needed it. That’s what testimony is. “When I discovered folk music, I suddenly saw how dreadful the world could be,” she said in a 1960 interview with Time. Folk was for her its own testimony, a revelation; she turned into prophecy. Prophecy, after all, isn’t so much about the future as the present and its evils.