Los Angeles - Folk music legend and civil rights activist Odetta Holmes has died aged 77, her manager said Tuesday.

Holmes, a champion of African-American music and civil rights issues for more than half a century, died at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City from heart disease, her
manager, Doug Yeager, said.

"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."