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Odell McLeod

American singer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 15, 2025
Entity authorityQ16015939
Source-derived summary

Odell McLeod 1916–2003 (known by his stage name Mac Odell) was an American country-gospel singer, radio entertainer, and songwriter.

Early life

McLeod was born May 31, 1916, in Roanoke, Alabama. He grew up on country music, listening to artists such as the Skillet Lickers, Deford Bailey, and Jimmie Rodgers. About 1939 he married Adeline Myrtle Wood, better known as Addie. She was from Arkansas and six years his junior. In 1940 they were living in Benton Township, Berrien County, Michigan.

Career

McLeod's began his career by working with Slim Bassett. During the 1930s they traveled regularly with McLeod popularizing his own songs by performing them on radio stations throughout the southern United States. The duo landed a regular show in New Orleans in 1935, known as "Mac & Slim." He continued to work with Bassett until he married his wife Addie. He continued his career as a radio entertainer alongside his wife Addie on WJJD in Chicago.

Editorial summary

“Odell McLeod” enters the record as american singer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Odell, McLeod and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1916, 2003, 1939, 1940—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1916. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Odell, McLeod and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Odell McLeod” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Odell, McLeod and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16015939. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 2003, 1939 and 1940.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Odell McLeod”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Odell McLeod primary sources, Odell McLeod archive and Odell research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Odell McLeod”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Odell McLeod” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.