Josh White Jr., who began his long career at age 4 performing alongside his father, the famed blues singer and guitarist Josh White, before carving out his own identity in the 1960s folk revival based in Greenwich Village, died on Dec. 28 at his home in Rochester, Mich., one day after announcing his retirement. He was 84.

His manager, Douglas Yeager, confirmed the death.

Josh White Sr. was among the country’s leading blues and folk musicians in the 1930s and ’40s, as well as a leading cultural figure in the civil rights movement of the time. He sang at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second inauguration and later joined Eleanor Roosevelt — a close friend and Josh Jr.’s godmother — on a good-will tour around Europe after World War II.

The elder Mr. White was a regular at Cafe Society, the racially integrated Greenwich Village music spot where Billie Holiday often performed. During a show there in 1945, a high, confident voice rose from the audience, singing along with him. The crowd cheered, and he brought his son onstage for the rest of the performance.

“Maybe you think he didn’t bring down the house,” he told United Press International in 1948, “but he sure did leave me in the cold.”

Josh White Jr. — known to his friends as Donnie, after his middle name, Donald — became a frequent collaborator with his father, touring with him around the country and appearing with him on radio and television.

Some of the best-known songs in the elder Mr. White’s repertoire, like “One Meatball,” became signature pieces in his son’s youthful oeuvre.