#cotten picking

[noirgallant]

Elizabeth Cotten in uni-ball pens, comic pens on Bristol paper.

[albumdaily]

Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes - Elizabeth Cotten (Smithsonian Folkways, 1989)

Elizabeth Cotten taught her lefthanded self to play a righthanded guitar.  It’s called Cotten-pickin’.  Cotten could’ve been easily lost to time.  She was a maid in her 60s when her employer “discovered” her and recorded her performing original and traditional music, the end result of which is this album, first released in 1958.  Thankfully Cotten’s beautiful music will be with us always.

[earthquake-weather-blog]

Freight Train - Elizabeth Cotten

I'm hitting the rails again for this Maysles Doc project on train travel tomorrow.  This will be on repeat.

[vinaluv]

What a wonderful story and a talented woman! I'm glad she died doing something she loved. 

[intrepidflower]

Elizabeth Cotten - Freight Train

[electronicsquid]

Libba Cotten

(Michael Mauney. 1972)

[becca-likes-books]

Elizabeth Cotten - Freight Train

Elizabeth Cotten (5 January 1895 - 29 June 1987) taught herself guitar when she was 11 years old, after saving money from her work as a domestic helper to buy one. She plays a right-handed guitar left-handed and not restrung, so she actually plays upside down; her alternating bass style has become known as 'Cotten picking'.

She wrote this song among others when she was in her teens, although she didn't start recording until she was in her sixties, when her talent was discovered by the folk-singing Seeger family, who she worked for as a maid.