Elizabeth Cotten: The Powerful Story Behind Her Music

Elizabeth Cotten stood in front of college audiences in her seventies. Her fingers moved across the guitar strings in an unusual pattern. She played the instrument upside down and backwards. Her thumb picked the melody on the bass strings. Her fingers played the bass lines on the treble strings. The sound was unlike anything most listeners had ever heard.

This self-taught musician from North Carolina wrote “Freight Train” at age twelve. She gave up music for twenty-five years to raise her family. She worked as a domestic servant for most of her life. Then, at age sixty-seven, she gave her first public performance. By age ninety, Elizabeth Cotten won a Grammy Award.

Early Life in Chapel Hill

Elizabeth Nevills was born on January 5, 1893, near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The 1900 census lists her as “Ella.” Her parents, George Nevill and Louisa Price Nevill, couldn’t agree on a name for their youngest child. At home, family members simply called her “Little Sis,” “Babe,” and “Shug.” Like fellow North Carolina Piedmont blues artists Etta Baker and Reverend Gary Davis, Cotten developed her style in relative isolation from commercial influences.

On her first day of school, the teacher asked her name. Young Elizabeth announced that her name was now Elizabeth. She named herself. The name stuck, though she would later be known as “Libba” to the Seeger family and many fans.

The Nevills family lived just west of Chapel Hill in an area that would later be incorporated as Carrboro. Their home sat near the railroad tracks on what is now Lloyd Street. The sound of trains rumbling past would later inspire Elizabeth’s most famous composition.

Elizabeth was the youngest of five children. She grew up in a working-class African American family during the Jim Crow era. Hard work, church, music, and family gatherings punctuated daily life.

Learning to Play Upside Down

At age seven, Elizabeth discovered her older brother’s homemade banjo. She was left-handed. When she tried to play the right-handed instrument normally, it felt awkward. She flipped it upside down. This allowed her to pick with her left hand while fretting with her right.

Her brother went to work each day. Elizabeth would sneak into his room and play his banjo. Broken strings often betrayed her borrowing. However, her brother never scolded her or forbade her to play. He recognized her passion for music.

Elizabeth tried restringing the banjo for left-handed playing. She found it didn’t work as well. She returned to her upside-down method. She taught herself to play this way. Nobody showed her how. She worked everything out herself.

When Elizabeth was nine years old, economic necessity forced her from school. She began working as a domestic servant in white households. This was common for young African American girls of her era.

Elizabeth Cotten Buys Her First Guitar

Elizabeth Cotten’s brother eventually grew up and left home. He took his banjo with him. Elizabeth desperately wanted an instrument of her own. She went door to door looking for additional work. She saved every penny she earned.

At age twelve, she had a live-in domestic job in Chapel Hill. She earned one dollar per month. Her mother saved this money for her. Eventually, Elizabeth had saved $3.75 – enough to purchase a Stella guitar from a local dry goods store.

“From that day on, nobody had no peace in that house,” Cotten later recalled with a laugh. She practiced constantly. She applied her upside-down playing method to the guitar. She taught herself to master complete chords while playing the instrument backwards.

Elizabeth developed a unique approach. She laid the guitar flat on her lap at first. She picked one string at a time. Later, she began holding the guitar upright and playing full arrangements. Her technique became increasingly sophisticated.

The “Cotten Picking” Style

Elizabeth Cotten created a distinctive fingerpicking style that would later be known as “Cotten picking.” Her upside-down playing position meant she approached the guitar differently from other players.

She played bass lines with her fingers on the treble strings. She played melody with her thumb on the bass strings. This reversed the normal fingerpicking pattern. It created a unique sound – a cross between classical parlor guitar and blues.

Her signature alternating bass style featured simple figures on the bass strings in counterpoint to melodies played on the treble strings. The result was sparse and reserved yet also loose and rhythmic. It combined elements of ragtime, blues, and traditional folk music.

By age fourteen, Elizabeth Cotten could perform a large repertoire of rags and dance tunes. Many were her own compositions. Her playing drew from multiple influences including parlor guitar players, traveling musicians, medicine and minstrel show performers, and local musical stylists.

Writing “Freight Train”

Around age eleven or twelve, Elizabeth Cotten composed her most famous song. She titled it “Freight Train.” The song captured the sound and rhythm of trains she heard from her bedroom at night. The tracks ran near her childhood home on Lloyd Street in Carrboro.

The song featured her distinctive fingerpicking pattern. Its melody was simple yet haunting. The lyrics evoked the romance and melancholy of train travel. The piece would lay dormant in her repertoire for decades before finding a worldwide audience.

“Freight Train” perfectly demonstrated Cotten’s unique style. It became a fingerpicker’s classic. It would eventually be recognized as one of the most influential folk songs of the twentieth century.

Marriage and Giving Up Music

On November 7, 1910, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth married Frank Cotten. This was not particularly early for the era. The couple soon had a daughter named Lillie.

As Elizabeth became immersed in family life, she spent more time at church. Church leaders counseled her to give up her “worldly” guitar music. Elizabeth complied. She put away her guitar except for occasional church performances.

Getting married helped her stop playing, Elizabeth Cotten later recalled. She was busy being a new wife, keeping house, and becoming a mother. To supplement her husband’s income without going out to work, she took in washing and ironing. These responsibilities consumed her time and energy. Eventually, she forgot about the guitar.

Elizabeth, Frank, and Lillie moved around the eastern United States for several years. They lived in North Carolina, New York City, and Washington, D.C. They finally settled in the Washington area. When Lillie married, Elizabeth divorced Frank. She moved in with her daughter and her new family.

For twenty-five years, Elizabeth Cotten didn’t play guitar. Her talent lay dormant. Her songs remained unheard except in her own memory.

The Chance Encounter

In 1943, Elizabeth Cotten moved to Washington, D.C. She wanted to be near her grown daughter when her grandchild was born. She did day work cleaning houses. During the holiday rush, she took a temporary job selling dolls at Lansburgh’s department store.

One day at the store, Cotten noticed a small child wandering alone through the aisles. The girl appeared lost and frightened. Cotten gently approached the child and asked if she could help her find her mother. The girl’s name was Peggy Seeger.

Cotten reunited Peggy with her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger. Ruth was so impressed with Cotten’s gentle manner and the way she interacted with children that she offered her a job. After the holidays ended, Cotten left the store and began working as a maid for the Seeger family.

This chance encounter would transform Elizabeth Cotten’s life. She had accidentally landed in one of the most musical households in America.

The Seeger Family

The Seeger home was an extraordinary place. Ruth Crawford Seeger was a noted composer and music teacher. Her husband, Charles Seeger, pioneered the field of ethnomusicology. Pete Seeger, Charles’s son from a previous marriage, was already becoming a folk music legend.

The house contained multiple instruments. The family was voraciously musical. They collected folk songs from across America. They studied traditional music with scholarly rigor. They also performed and taught music professionally.

The Seeger children – Mike, Peggy, Barbara, and Penny – were too young to pronounce “Elizabeth.” They called their kind housekeeper “Libba.” The nickname stuck. Elizabeth embraced it for the rest of her life.

Rediscovery of Her Talent

A few years passed before the Seegers discovered Elizabeth Cotten’s musical ability. One day, Peggy Seeger came home and heard someone playing the family’s gut-stringed guitar. She followed the sound and found Libba playing.

Cotten immediately apologized. “I didn’t know how she’d feel about it. I was playing her guitar,” Cotten later recalled. Peggy asked what she had been playing. Cotten replied, “Freight Train.” Peggy asked her to play it again.

That day, Mike Seeger returned from school. Peggy told him their housekeeper could play guitar. They went into the music room. Elizabeth Cotten first played the church song “In the Sweet Bye and Bye” in a simple, four-square manner. Then, after a brief pause, she played it in ragtime style.

Mike Seeger later described the moment as incredible. Cotten’s music was “a cross between a classical parlor style and blues, which is what I think makes her music so charming; it’s sparse and reserved but also just a little bit loose.”

The Seegers encouraged Elizabeth Cotten to resume playing and singing. They recognized her extraordinary talent immediately. They understood the historical importance of her repertoire and her unique playing style.

Elizabeth Cotten’s First Recordings

In the mid-1950s, Mike Seeger began making reel-to-reel recordings of Elizabeth Cotten’s songs in her house. These bedroom recordings captured her distinctive voice and guitar work. They documented songs she had composed decades earlier. They preserved a musical tradition that stretched back to the turn of the century.

In 1957 (some sources say 1958), these recordings became Cotten’s first album. Folkways Records released it as “Negro Folk Songs and Tunes.” It was later reissued as “Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes.”

The album was meticulously produced by Mike Seeger. It was one of the few authentic folk music albums available by the early 1960s. It certainly was one of the most influential.

The album provided accessible examples of open tunings used in American folk guitar. It showcased Elizabeth Cotten’s single-string melody picking style on “Freight Train.” It demonstrated her adaptation of southeastern country ragtime picking. It revealed her mastery of multiple styles on both guitar and banjo.

Elizabeth Cotten was sixty-two years old when her first album was released.

The “Freight Train” Copyright Controversy

Peggy Seeger took “Freight Train” with her to England. The song became popular in British folk music circles. However, two pseudonymous British songwriters named “Paul James” and “Fred Williams” claimed they wrote it. They copyrighted the song under their names. They added a murderer-on-the-run storyline.

In December 1956, British skiffle singer Chas McDevitt recorded “Freight Train” with Nancy Whiskey. The recording became a major hit in the UK. It reached number 5 on the British pop charts. It sold well around the world. It became one of the main influences on the rise of skiffle music in Britain.

Elizabeth Cotten received nothing from this success. The copyright had been stolen from her. A lawsuit was required for her to receive credit and royalties for her own composition. Eventually, she secured partial rights to “Freight Train” in 1957.

The legal battle highlighted a common problem in folk music. Traditional songs and compositions by African American artists were often misappropriated by white performers and publishers.

Elizabeth Cotten’s Public Performance Career

In 1959, Mike Seeger invited Elizabeth Cotten to give her first public performance. They appeared together at Swarthmore College. Cotten was sixty-seven years old. She was a grandmother. She had never performed publicly before.

The performance was a success. Acclaim for her first recording resulted in invitations to numerous folk and blues festivals. A surging interest in folk music swept the country during the early 1960s. Elizabeth Cotten rode this wave to unexpected late-life fame.

She performed at the 1963 Philadelphia Folk Festival. She appeared at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. She played at the University of Chicago Folk Festival and the Smithsonian Festival. She became a regular at folk venues across America.

Elizabeth Cotten’s stage presence defied show business conventions. She would play her music and tell stories about her life while continuing to pick background accompaniment. Then she would urge audiences to sing along. Her gentle, commanding personality captivated listeners.

Peter Seeger proudly wrote: “Libba Cotten, seventy-two years old and black, got a standing ovation from 3,000 white students at Duke University in March.” Her performances bridged racial divides during a turbulent era.

Later Albums and Touring

In 1967, Elizabeth Cotten recorded her second album, “Shake Sugaree.” Mike Seeger again produced it for Folkways. The album featured her extraordinary banjo playing and her revelatory fingerpicking style. It introduced another generation to her music. Her grandchildren joined her on some tracks.

In 1979, Folkways released “When I’m Gone.” This third studio album contained more of Elizabeth Cotten’s older compositions. It also included songs she had learned on the concert circuit.

Around 1970, Cotten retired from domestic service. By the late 1970s, she was touring regularly. Traditional Arts Services began handling her bookings. She toured America with blues singer Taj Mahal when she was in her seventies.

Using profits from touring, record releases, and awards, Elizabeth Cotten moved from Washington, D.C. to Syracuse, New York. She bought a house to be near her daughter and grandchildren. Syracuse became her base for the rest of her life.

Major Awards and Recognition

Elizabeth Cotten received the 1972 Burl Ives Award from the National Folk Festival Association. This recognized her vital contributions to American folk music.

In 1984, the National Endowment for the Arts named Elizabeth Cotten a National Heritage Fellow. This is the United States government’s highest honor in folk and traditional arts. The Smithsonian Institution also recognized her as a “living treasure.”

Grammy Award at Age Ninety

In 1985, Elizabeth Cotten won a Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording. The award honored her album “Elizabeth Cotten Live!” released by Arhoolie Records. She was ninety years old – the oldest person to win a Grammy Award at that time.

When accepting the award in Los Angeles, her comment was characteristically humble: “Thank you. I only wish I had my guitar so I could play a song for you all.”

In 1986, she received another Grammy nomination for her “20th Anniversary Concert” album.

City and National Honors

The city of Syracuse honored Elizabeth Cotten multiple times. In 1978, she became the city’s first “Living Treasure.” In 1983, Syracuse named a small park in her honor: the Elizabeth Cotten Grove.

Cultural Impact

In 1989, Elizabeth Cotten was included in the book “I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America” by Brian Lanker. She appeared alongside Rosa Parks, Marian Anderson, and Oprah Winfrey. The book documented 75 influential African American women.

In 2022, Elizabeth Cotten was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category. This recognized her profound impact on modern music.

In 2023, Rolling Stone magazine named Elizabeth Cotten the 36th best guitarist of all time. This placed her among the greatest instrumentalists in music history.

Cotten’s influence on Piedmont blues traditions paralleled that of other North Carolina artists including Etta Baker, who also played two-finger style guitar.

Influence on Other Artists

Elizabeth Cotten’s songs have been covered by numerous artists across multiple genres. The Grateful Dead performed “Oh, Babe, It Ain’t No Lie.” Bob Dylan covered “Shake Sugaree.” Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Jerry Garcia, Taj Mahal, Doc Watson, and Tommy Emmanuel all recorded “Freight Train.”

Her influence extended beyond individual songs. Her fingerpicking technique inspired countless guitarists. Fingerstyle legends studied her approach. Her method of playing bass lines with fingers and melody with thumb became a recognized technique.

NPR stated that “her influence has reverberated through the generations, permeating every genre of music.” Her impact on folk, blues, country, and acoustic music cannot be overstated.

Thousands of middle-class young people in the 1960s learned “Freight Train” as their first foray into fingerpicking. From there, they went on to study deeper traditional music. Elizabeth Cotten served as a gateway to American roots music for an entire generation.

Final Years

Elizabeth Cotten continued performing into her nineties. Her hands were becoming weak. She had trouble with the guitar. Dana Klipp, a friend well-acquainted with her style, began accompanying her in 1984. Klipp had been working with Johnine Rankin, Cotten’s granddaughter. Eventually, the three evolved into a trio.

Elizabeth Cotten’s last concert was in New York City in the spring of 1987. Folk legend Odetta organized the performance as a tribute.

On June 29, 1987, Elizabeth Cotten died at Crouse-Irving Hospital in Syracuse, New York. She was ninety-four years old. She is buried in Syracuse.

Legacy in the National Recording Registry

In 2008, the Library of Congress selected Elizabeth Cotten’s album “Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar” for the National Recording Registry. The Library deemed it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

This honor placed Cotten’s work alongside the most important recordings in American history. It recognized the album’s role in preserving and transmitting African American folk traditions.

A Unique Voice in American Music

Elizabeth Cotten’s story embodies the unpredictability of artistic recognition. She wrote her most famous song at age twelve. She gave up music for twenty-five years. She worked as a domestic servant for most of her life. Then, through a chance encounter, she found herself in the perfect household to nurture her talent.

She didn’t record her first album until age sixty-two. She didn’t give her first public performance until age sixty-seven. She won a Grammy at age ninety. She toured and performed into her nineties.

Her “Cotten picking” style emerged from necessity. Being left-handed, she adapted to a right-handed instrument by playing it upside down. This limitation became her signature. It created a sound that was uniquely hers.

Her music combined elements of parlor guitar, ragtime, blues, and gospel. It was sparse yet emotionally rich. It was technically simple yet deeply expressive. It demonstrated that innovation can come from unexpected places and people.

Elizabeth Cotten proved that talent, once nurtured, can bloom at any age. Her late-life success inspired countless others to pursue their artistic dreams regardless of age or circumstance. Her music continues to move listeners and inspire guitarists decades after her death.

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