One of the great folk singers of late-20th-century America, Odetta Holmes known as Odetta, died of heart disease Tuesday in New York City at age 77. Her deep and very special voice made her one of the voices of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s.

Manager Douglas Yeager said Odetta passed away late Tuesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, after a decade-long fight with chronic heart disease and pulmonary fibrosis in her lungs. "May Odetta's luminous spirit and volcanic voice from the heavens live on for the ages," Yeager said in a statement. "Her voice will never die."

With a repertoire that included 19th century slave songs and spirituals as well as the topical ballads of such 20th century folk icons as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, Odetta became one of the most beloved figures in folk music. She was said to have influenced the emergence of artists as varied as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin and Tracy Chapman.

She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, but she first came to the West Coast when she and her mother moved from her birth-state of Alabama in 1937. She went on to earning a degree in classic music and musical theatre from Los Angeles City College.

Odetta made her name by playing around the United States: at the Blue Angel nightclub in New York City, the Hungry i in San Francisco, and Tin Angel in the same city, where she and Larry Mohr recorded “Odetta and Larry” in 1954, for Fantasy Records. A solo career followed, with “Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues” back in 1956 and “At the Gate of Horn” in 1957. Moreover “Odetta Sings Folk Songs” was one of 1963's best-selling folk albums.

Odetta's monumental voice rang out in August 1963 when she sang "I'm on My Way" at the historic March on Washington, where Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. A day that will always be remembered.

In addition to being one of folk music’s most enduring icons, Odetta was also known for her activism and support for the civil rights movement. She was one of the performers at the historic march on Washington in August, 1963. Civil rights legend Rosa Parks once stated that the songs that meant the most to her were “all the songs Odetta sings,” according to Reuters.

In spite of failing health, Odetta performed 60 concerts in the last two years, and her singing ability never diminished, manager Doug Yeager said. In Summer 2008, at the age of 77, she launched another national tour, with concerts in Albany, New York and other cities, singing in a wheelchair. Her set in recent years includes "This Little Light of Mine (I'm Gonna Let It Shine)", Lead Belly's "The Bourgeois Blues", (Something Inside) So Strong", "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "House of the Rising Sun"

For Odetta and many other survivors of the Civil Rights Movement, the election of Barack Obama as president signaled a fulfilling chapter in the struggle. She had hoped to perform again in Washington next month when Barack Obama is inaugurated as the nation's first black president.

Odetta was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton in 2004 and was also recognized as a Kennedy Center honoree. The Library of Congress bestowed her with its Living Legend Award in 2005.