George Wein, the impresario of the Newport folk and jazz festivals, remembered Odetta yesterday as “important in my life and the life of Newport — more than people realize.”

Before running the Newport festivals, Wein ran the jazz nightclub Storyville, in Boston, and in the late ’50s he had Sunday- afternoon jam sessions, occasionally featuring folk artists.

Odetta packed the place. And that gave Wein an idea.

“All of a sudden I had 300 kids from Harvard Square and everywhere. And I said, ‘There’s enough interest here to do a folk festival in addition to the jazz festival.’ Here I have a jazz club, and all of a sudden I have a whole group of people — more people! — coming in on Sunday afternoon, drinking ginger ales to see Odetta.”

She played the first couple of folk festivals, then didn’t return until 2006, when she gave a performance that was laced with recountings of the histories of the songs, and topped with a stern, world-weary encore of “House of the Rising Sun” that seemed to drop the temperature in the second-stage tent about 30 degrees.

“She just commanded the stage,” Wein says. “Just took over. She radiated up there.”

Wein says he saw her about seven months ago, when the singer was in a wheelchair. “We hugged and kissed,” Wein says, “but I knew she was going.”

Even near the end, though, Wein said Odetta was “just magnificent … Just a marvelous person.”

Patrick Norton booked Odetta at the Narrows Center, in Fall River, Mass., in 2003, 2004 and 2005, and remembers her as “an amazing lady. I remember her being very kind and very generous to the fans. She had an amazing voice. She was a little frail, but once she got on stage, she was as great as she ever was. … And she had a great message, a message of hope and coming together. She was someone who had lived both sides of the street, and she talked about that, too.”

In a 2004 interview, Odetta remembered the early days.

“There was not necessarily a place where folk music was done, except for our living rooms. And we just sort of joined up with each other in our living rooms. And then there came public spaces and places to play at coffeehouses and clubs.

“And that was generated by the interest that the college students had in the music. . . . It was percolating, let’s say.”

“I figure I’ll continue singing until I’m 90 years old,” Odetta said in 2004, “and I have only three notes left. And I’ll be croaking them, but I expect to be working through the music.”

rmassimo@projo.com