Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten ( Nevills; January 5, 1893 – June 29, 1987)
was an American
folk and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...
musician. She was a self-taught left-handed guitarist who played a guitar strung for a right-handed player, but played it upside down. This position meant that she would play the
bass line
Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, dub and electronic, traditional, or classical music for the low-pitched instrumental part or line played (in jazz and some ...
s with her fingers and the melody with her thumb. Her signature
alternating bass
In music, alternate bass is a performance technique on many instruments where the bass alternates between two notes, most often the root and the fifth of a triad or chord. The perfect fifth is often, but not always, played below the root, tra ...
style has become known as "Cotten picking".
Early life
Cotten was born in 1893
[U.S. Federal Census, Chapel Hill. 1870, 1880, 1900.] to a musical family near
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ...
,
in an area that would later be incorporated as
Carrboro
Carrboro is a town in Orange County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 21,295 at the 2020 census. . Her parents were George Nevill (also spelled Nevills) and Louisa (or Louise) Price Nevill. Elizabeth was the youngest of five children. She named herself on her first day of school, when the teacher asked her name, because at home she was only called "Li'l Sis".
By the age of eight, she was playing songs. At age nine, she was forced to quit school and began work as a
domestic worker
A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...
.
At the age of twelve, she had a live-in job at Chapel Hill. She earned a dollar a month, that her mother saved up to buy her first guitar.
The guitar, a
Sears and Roebuck
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as ...
brand instrument, cost $3.75 ().
[ Although self-taught, she became proficient at playing the instrument, and her repertoire included a large number of rags and dance tunes.]
By her early teens, she was writing her own songs, one of which, "Freight Train
Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.
A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) haul ...
", became one of her most recognized. She wrote the song in remembrance of a nearby train that she could hear from her childhood home. The 1956 UK recording of the song by Chas McDevitt
Charles James McDevitt (born 4 December 1934) is a Scottish musician, one of the leading lights of the skiffle genre which was highly influential and popular in the United Kingdom in the mid-to-late 1950s.
Biography
McDevitt was born in Eagles ...
and Nancy Whiskey
Nancy Whiskey (born Anne Alexandra Young Wilson, 4 March 1935 – 1 February 2003) was a Scottish folk singer, best known for the 1957 hit song, "Freight Train".
Life and career
Nancy Wilson was born in Dalmarnock, Glasgow, Scotland, and learne ...
was a major hit and is credited as one of the main influences on the rise of skiffle
Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United Stat ...
in the UK.
Around the age of 13, Cotten began working as a maid along with her mother. On November 7, 1910, at the age of 17, she married Frank Cotten. The couple had a daughter, Lillie, and soon after Elizabeth gave up guitar playing for family and church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Chri ...
. Elizabeth, Frank and their daughter Lillie moved around the eastern United States for a number of years, between North Carolina
North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...
, New York City, 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.
Rediscovery
Cotten retired from playing the guitar for 25 years, except for occasional church performances. She did not begin performing publicly and recording until she was in her 60s. She was discovered by the folk-singing Seeger family while she was working for them as a housekeeper.
While working briefly in a department store, Cotten helped a child wandering through the aisles find her mother. The child was Peggy Seeger
Margaret "Peggy" Seeger (born June 17, 1935) is an American folk singer. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years, and was married to the singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989.
First American period
Seeger's father ...
, and the mother was the composer Ruth Crawford Seeger
Ruth Crawford Seeger (born Ruth Porter Crawford; July 3, 1901 – November 18, 1953) was an American composer and folk music specialist. Her music was a prominent exponent of the emerging modernist aesthetic and she became a central member of a g ...
. Soon after this, Cotten again began working as a maid, this time for Ruth Crawford Seeger and Charles Seeger
Charles Louis Seeger Jr. (December 14, 1886 – February 7, 1979) was an American musicologist, composer, teacher, and folklorist. He was the father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger (1919–2014), Peggy Seeger (b. 1935), and Mike Seeger ( ...
, and caring for their children, Mike
Mike may refer to:
Animals
* Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum
* Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off
* Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and document ...
, Peggy, Barbara, and Penny. Seeger family kids, who were too young to pronounce "Elizabeth", began calling her "Libba", and she embraced that nickname later in life. While working with the Seegers (a voraciously musical family that included Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notabl ...
, a son of Charles from a previous marriage), she remembered her own guitar playing from 40 years prior and picked up the instrument again and relearned to play it, almost from scratch.[
]
Later career and recordings
In the later half of the 1950s, Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger (August 15, 1933August 7, 2009) was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, a ...
began making bedroom reel-to-reel
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is pla ...
recordings of Cotten's songs in her house.[Mike Seeger Collection Inventory (#20009), Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.] These recordings later became the album ''Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar
''Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar'' is a 1958 album by American blues and folk musician Elizabeth Cotten and was released on Folkways Records as FG 3526. In 1989 it was reissued by Smithsonian Folkways as SFW40009 featuring Mike Seeger's ...
'', which was released by Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.
History
The Folkways Records & Service ...
. Since the release of that album, her songs, especially her signature song, "Freight Train" — which she wrote when she was a teenager — have been covered by Peter, Paul, and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Travers. The group's repertoir ...
, Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence ...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, Joe Dassin
Joseph Ira Dassin (; 5 November 1938 – 20 August 1980) was an American–French singer-songwriter and actor. He was the son of film director Jules Dassin.
Early life
Dassin was born in New York City to American film director Jules Dassin (19 ...
, Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
, Devendra Banhart, Laura Gibson
Laura Anne Gibson (born August 9, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She currently records for the U.S. independent label Barsuk Records, and the Berlin-based label City Slang. Gibson's most recent album ''Goners'' ...
, Laura Veirs
Laura Pauline Veirs (born October 24, 1973) is an American singer-songwriter based out of Portland, Oregon. She is known for her folk/ alternative country records and live performances as well as her collaboration with Neko Case and k.d. lang o ...
, His Name Is Alive
His Name Is Alive is an American experimental rock band/project from Livonia, Michigan. After several self-released cassettes, they debuted on 4AD Records in 1990, starting a long run at the label. Throughout the band's long history, leader Warre ...
, Doc Watson
Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. W ...
, Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...
, Geoff Farina, and Country Teasers
Country Teasers were an art punk band formed in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1993.
Frontman Ben Wallers also performs solo as The Rebel. He plays live shows with a Gameboy backing-track or accompanied by Country Teasers bassist Sophie Politowicz on dru ...
.
Peggy Seeger
Margaret "Peggy" Seeger (born June 17, 1935) is an American folk singer. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years, and was married to the singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989.
First American period
Seeger's father ...
took the song "Freight Train" with her to England, where it became popular in folk music circles. British songwriters Paul James and Fred Williams subsequently misappropriated it as their own composition and copyrighted it. Under their credit, it was then recorded by British skiffle singer Chas McDevitt
Charles James McDevitt (born 4 December 1934) is a Scottish musician, one of the leading lights of the skiffle genre which was highly influential and popular in the United Kingdom in the mid-to-late 1950s.
Biography
McDevitt was born in Eagles ...
, who recorded the song in December 1956. Under advice from his manager (Bill Varley), McDevitt then brought in folk-singer Nancy Whiskey
Nancy Whiskey (born Anne Alexandra Young Wilson, 4 March 1935 – 1 February 2003) was a Scottish folk singer, best known for the 1957 hit song, "Freight Train".
Life and career
Nancy Wilson was born in Dalmarnock, Glasgow, Scotland, and learne ...
and re-recorded the song with her doing the vocal; the result was a chart hit. McDevitt's version influenced many young skiffle groups of the day, including The Quarrymen
The Quarrymen (also written as "the Quarry Men") are a British skiffle/rock and roll group, formed by John Lennon in Liverpool in 1956, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Originally consisting of Lennon and several schoolfriends, the Quar ...
. Under the advocacy of the influential Seeger family, the copyright was eventually restored to Cotten. Nevertheless, it remains mis-credited in many sources.
Shortly after that first album, she began playing concerts with Mike Seeger, the first of which was in 1960 at Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
.
In the early 1960s, Cotten went on to play concerts with some of the big names in the burgeoning folk revival
The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Billie Holiday, Richard Dyer-Benn ...
. Some of these included Mississippi John Hurt
John Smith Hurt (March 8, 1893 – November 2, 1966), better known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer and guitarist.
Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine. He wo ...
, John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...
, and Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago b ...
at venues such as the Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America, and remains a foca ...
and the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife.
The newfound interest in her work inspired her to write more songs to perform, and in 1967 she released a record created with her grandchildren, which took its name from one of her songs, "Shake Sugaree". The song featured 12-year-old Brenda Joyce Evans, Cotten's great-grandchild, and future Undisputed Truth
The Undisputed Truth was an American Motown recording act, assembled by record producer Norman Whitfield as a means for being able to experiment with his psychedelic soul production techniques. Joe "Pep" Harris served as main lead singer, with ...
singer.
Using profits from her touring, record releases and awards given to her for her own contributions to the folk arts, Cotten was able to move with her daughter and grandchildren from Washington, D.C., and buy a house in Syracuse, New York
Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...
. She was also able to continue touring and releasing records well into her 80s. In 1984, she won the Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...
for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording, for the album ''Elizabeth Cotten Live'', released by Arhoolie Records
Arhoolie Records is an American small independent record label run by Chris Strachwitz and is based in El Cerrito, California, United States (it is actually located in Richmond Annex but has an El Cerrito postal address.) The label was founded b ...
. When accepting the award in Los Angeles, her comment was, "Thank you. I only wish I had my guitar so I could play a song for you all." In 1989, Cotten was one of 75 influential African-American women included in the photo documentary '' I Dream a World.''
Cotten died in June 1987, at Crouse-Irving Hospital in Syracuse, New York, at the age of 94.
Guitar style
Cotten began writing music while toying with her older brother's banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
. She was left-handed, so she played the banjo in reverse position. Later, when she transferred her songs to the guitar, she formed a unique style, since on a 5-string banjo the uppermost string is not a bass string, but a short, high-pitched string which ends at the fifth fret. This required her to adopt a unique style for the guitar. She first played with the "all finger down strokes" like a banjo.[ Later, her playing evolved into a unique style of ]fingerpicking
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of guitar picking, playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with ...
. Her signature alternating bass style is now known as "Cotten picking". Her fingerpicking techniques have influenced many other musicians.
Discography
LPs
* ''Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar
''Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar'' is a 1958 album by American blues and folk musician Elizabeth Cotten and was released on Folkways Records as FG 3526. In 1989 it was reissued by Smithsonian Folkways as SFW40009 featuring Mike Seeger's ...
'' (1958)
* Vol. 2: ''Shake Sugaree'' (1967)
* Vol. 3: ''When I'm Gone'' (1979)
Recordings on CD
* ''Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes'' (also known as ''Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar'') (1958)
* ''Shake Sugaree''
* ''Live!''
* Vol. 3: ''When I'm Gone''
Special collections
Mike Seeger Collection (#20009)
Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Filmography
Video and DVD
* ''Masters of the Country Blues: Elizabeth Cotten and Jesse Fuller'' (1960)
* ''Me and Stella: A Film about Elizabeth Cotten (''1976)
* ''Elizabeth Cotten Portrait Collection'' (1977–1985)
* ''Homemade American Music'' (1980)
* ''Libba Cotten: An Interview and Presentation Ceremony'' (1985)
* ''Elizabeth Cotten with Mike Seeger'' (1994)
* ''Legends of Traditional Fingerstyle Guitar'' (1994)
* ''Mike Seeger and Elizabeth Cotten (''1991)
* ''Jesse Fuller and Elizabeth Cotten (''1992)
* ''The Downhome Blues'' (1994)
* ''John Fahey, Elizabeth Cotten: Rare Performances and Interviews'' (1969 & 1994)
* ''Rainbow Quest with Pete Seeger. Judy Collins and Elizabeth Cotten'' (2005)
* ''Elizabeth Cotten in Concert, 1969, 1978, and 1980'' (1969 & 2003)
* ''The Guitar of Elizabeth Cotten'' (2002)
Awards and honors
* In 1980, 1982, and 1987, Cotten was nominated for a Blues Music Award
The Blues Music Awards, formerly known as the W. C. Handy Awards (or "The Handys"), are awards presented by the Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization set up to foster blues heritage. The awards were originally named in honor of W. C. Handy, " ...
in the Traditional Blues Female Artist category.
* Cotten was a recipient of a 1984 National Heritage Fellowship
The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States government's h ...
awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
* In 1985, she won the Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...
in the Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording category for ''Elizabeth Cotten Live!''
* In 1986, she was nominated for a Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...
in the Best Traditional Folk Recording category for her ''20th Anniversary Concert'' album.
* In 2022, Cotten was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and othe ...
in the Early Influence category.
Further reading
* Bastin, Bruce (1986). ''Red River Blues''. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
* Cohen, John; Marcus, Greil (2001). ''There Is No Eye: John Cohen Photographs''. New York: PowerHouse Books.
* Cohn, Lawrence (1993). ''Nothing but the Blues: The Music and the Musicians''. New York: Abbeville Press.
* Conway, Cecilia (1995). ''African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia''. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
* Escamilla, Brian (1996). ''Contemporary Musicians: Profiles of the People in Music''. Vol. 16.
* Harris, Sheldon (1979). ''Blues Who's Who''. New York: Da Capa Press.
* Hood, Phil (1986). ''Artists of American Folk Music: The Legends of Traditional Folk, the Stars of the Sixties, the Virtuosi of New Acoustic Music''. New York: Quill.
* Santelli, Robert (2001). ''American Roots Music''. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
* Seeger, Mike. Liner notes accompanying ''Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes'', by Elizabeth Cotten. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Folkways, 1989 reissue of the 1958 album ''Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar''.
* Smith, Jessie Carney (1993). ''Epic Lives: One Hundred Black Women Who Made a Difference''. Detroit: Visible Ink Press.
* Smith, Jesse Carney, ed. (1992). ''Notable Black American Women.'' Detroit: Gale Research.
* Wenberg, Michael (2002). ''Elizabeth's Song''. (Children's book.) Hillsboro, Oregon: Beyond Words Publishing
Beyond Words Publishing is a book publishing company located in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1983, the company was unprofitable in its early years, though its works were award-winning. The privately owned company focuses on non-fict ...
.
References
External links
*
*
Cotten discography at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
for the WGBH serie
''Say Brother''
*
Clip of Cotten performing in 1969
Elizabeth Cotten Freight Train
North Carolina Highway Marker for Elizabeth Cotten
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cotten, Elizabeth
1893 births
1987 deaths
American blues guitarists
American blues singers
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
20th-century African-American women singers
Blues revival musicians
National Heritage Fellowship winners
Singers from North Carolina
Grammy Award winners
People from Carrboro, North Carolina
Piedmont blues musicians
Musicians from Syracuse, New York
Culture of Syracuse, New York
African-American guitarists
20th-century American guitarists
Guitarists from North Carolina
20th-century American women singers
Arhoolie Records artists
Folkways Records artists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
Folk musicians from North Carolina
African American female guitarists