The Queen of Fingerpicking: Elizabeth Cotten's Story
Demographic Info
Elizabeth Cotten, born Elizabeth “Libba” Nevills, in 1983 was a folk and blues musician originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. One of five siblings, Elizabeth discovered her talent and love for music as young as 8 years old. Because of her family circumstances, she was forced to stop attending school and get a job as a live in maid with her mother Louisa. After saving up, she had enough money to buy her first Sears and Roebuck brand guitar. As she entered her teens, she began to write her own songs. She was on hiatus for around 25 years, and then began singing and recording in the 1950s. Cotten played a huge role along in the revival of Folk music along with others, like John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, even if she wasn’t given the credit for it back then. Unfortunately, Cotten passed in 1987 at age 94 after a long and fruitful career.
This is her album released in 1989 that has her most popular song, “Freight Train”.
Popular Songs
- Freight Train
- Shake Sugaree
- Wilson Rag
- I don’t love nobody
- I’m Going Away
Career Challenges
- Late Recognition: Because Cotten took a 20+ year break from music, she lost the opportunity to travel and promote her career during her prime years.
- Racial/Gender Bias: Cotten worked as a maid for the Seeger family, and Mike Seeger discovered her singing and songwriting talent. However, due to the intersectional bias of gender and race, Seeger took Cotten’s hit song “Freight Train” and passed it along to other white, sometimes female, artists to be covered and then performed. Some of these performances even went overseas. Cotten then had to privately battle to get her share of the royalties from the songs success
Unique Folk Style
Cotten was left handed, so her older brother who was also left handed taught her that the best way to play was the hold the guitar upside down. This meant that the bass strings were toward the bottom rather than the top. So, Elizabeth used her thumb to play the bass notes and her fingers to play the melodies. This became known as the “Cotten Style.” She is also known to have played the ragtime picking style, which adds a more syncopated dynamic to traditional blues guitar plucking.
