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Elizabeth Cotten (January 5, 1895 - June 29, 1987) was an American musician. Her style was traditional blues and folk, but was original since she was self-taught, and had no knowledge of tuning in the traditional sense.
Elizabeth Cotten was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina to a musical family. She began writing music while toying around with her older siblings instruments, sometimes having to sneak into her older brother's room to lay the hidden guitar across her lap and play. After more tinkering with these instruments she began playing the guitar upside down (left handed). By age 8 she was playing songs, and after scraping together some money she bought her own guitar, which she named "Stella".
She possessed a remarkable ability to hear a song and play it verbatim after hearing it only once. By her early teens she was writing her own songs, one of which was "Freight Train", which would go on to be one of her most recognized.
Around the age of 13 she began working as a maid along with her mother. Soon after at age 15 she was married to Frank Cotten. The couple had a daughter together, and soon after young Elizabeth gave up guitar playing for family life and church. Elizabeth, Frank and their daughter Lillie moved around eastern United States for a number of years between North Carolina, New York, and Washington D.C., finally settling in the D.C. area. When Lillie married, Elizabeth divorced Frank and moved in with her daughter and her family.
While working for a brief stint in a department store Elizabeth helped a child wandering through the aisles find her mother. The child was Peggy Seeger and the mother was Ruth Crawford Seeger of the Charles Seeger Family. Soon after this Elizabeth again begun working as a domestic caring for the Seeger's children Mike, Pete, and Peggy. While working with the Seegers' (a voraciously musical family) she remembered her own guitar playing from forty years prior, and picked up the instrument again to start from scratch.
It isn't clear if she developed her distinct style when she was a child or later when she began playing again, however Elizabeth's' unmistakably original chords, melodies and finger picking techniques would go on to influence slews of musicians.
During the later half of the fifties Mike Seeger began making bedroom reel to reel recordings of her songs in Elizabeth's house. The culmination of these recordings would later go on Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar, which was released on Folkways Records. Shortly afterwards she began playing selected joint shows with Mike Seeger, the first of which was in 1960 at Swarthmore College.
Over the course of the early sixties Elizabeth would go on to play more shows with big names in the burgeoning sixties folk revival. Some of these included Mississippi John Hurt, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters at places such as the Newport Folk Festival, and the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife.
The newfound interest in her work inspired her to write more material to play and in 1967 she released a record created with her grandchildren entitled, Shake Sugaree.
Through the culmination of profits from her touring and record releases, as well as a slew of awards given to her for contribution to the folk arts, Elizabeth moved with her daughter and grandchildren from Washington and bought a house in Syracuse, New York. She continued touring and releasing records well into her 80's. In 1984 she won the Grammy Award for "Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording" for her album on Arhoolie Records "Elizabeth Cotten Live". When accepting the award on the Grammy stage in Los Angeles, her comment was "Thank you. I only wish I had my guitar so I could play a song for you all".
Elizabeth Cotten died in Syracuse, at the age of 92.
ELIZABETH COTTEN ON YOUTUBE:Libba telling how she met the Seeger Family:
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Shake Sugaree video:
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Graduation March video:
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Freight Train video: (from 1969)
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LIBBA PLAYING FREIGHT TRAIN IN 1957-Pete Seeger's Home Movie!
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Her First Tune video:
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Ruben video:
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Jesus is Tenderly Calling Today:
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What A Friend We Have In Jesus video:
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Old 97 and If I Had the Wings of an Angel video:
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Oh, Babe, It Ain't No Lie video:
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Duo With Mike Seeger video:
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Mama Where's The Baby video:
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Also:
When I am dead and in my grave,
No more good times here I crave,
Place the stones at my head and feet,
Tell them all that I've gone to sleep.
When I die, Lord, bury me deep,
Way down on old Chestnut street,
Then I can hear old Number 9,
As she comes rolling by...
