Elizabeth Cotten (1895-1987) was a gifted musician whose impact on folk music was immense, with her distinctive style of playing the banjo and guitar still imitated by musicians today.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan, and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Our Local Legend today is from my home state of North Carolina. She was an incredibly gifted musician whose impact on folk music was immense, belying the fact that her talents went largely unappreciated for most of her life. Her distinctive style of playing the banjo and guitar is imitated widely by folk musicians today as the “cotten style”. We’re talking about Elizabeth Cotten.
Elizabeth Cotten was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on January 5th, 1895, to George and Louisa Nevills.
Elizabeth, or Libba as she was often called, grew up in a musical home. From a young age, she was surrounded by the sounds of spirituals. She was incredibly gifted, though she never formally learned to read or write music.
When she was 8 years old, Libba taught herself how to play the banjo. To do so, she borrowed her brother’s instrument when he wasn’t around. There was just one hiccup: Libba was left handed and her brother was right handed. Libba wasn’t bothered. She taught herself to play with a right-handed guitar flipped upside down. For the rest of her life, her unique playing style, in part, derived from her unusual instrument positioning.
When her brother moved out, Libba was determined to buy herself her own instrument. She got a babysitting and house-cleaning gig and eventually bought a guitar. She developed a technique with a simple bass line strummed with her fingers countering the melody produced by her thumb on the treble strings. She had an incredible ear and could pick up a tune after hearing it just once.
When Libba was 11 years old, she wrote a song that would one day be world famous, covered by the likes of Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul, and Mary. It was called Freight Train.
But before all that, Libba’s musical endeavors took a decades-long pause as she became more involved in her church. Around the age of 13, Libba was baptized into the Baptist church. As part of her new dedication to her faith, the local church leadership pleaded with Libba to give up playing the secular music that they believed was damned. For many years, she complied.
At the age of 15, Libba married a man named Frank Cotten. The couple had one daughter, Lily.
About a year after Frank and Libba married, Frank moved to New York, where he started a chauffeur business. Libba and Lily followed soon after.
For the next 25 years Libba refrained from playing or composing music except for occasional church performances.
She and Frank eventually divorced and Libba moved to Washington, D.C., to be close to her grown up daughter.
While living in DC, Libba supported herself by working at Lansburgh’s Department Store. One day on the job, she saw a little girl crying in her department, searching for her mom. As fate would have it, the lost girl was Peggy Seeger.
Peggy Seeger was the daughter of Ruth Crawford Seeger, a composer and music teacher, and Charles Seeger, an ethnomusicologist. Peggy’s step-brother was famed-folk singer and activist Pete Seeger.
When Libba returned Peggy to her very worried mother, Ruth, Ruth offered Libba a job. Libba took her up on it, and began working at the Seeger household as a cook and cleaner.
The Seegers were a very musical family. While in their employ, Libba picked back up the guitar. When the Seeger family heard Libba, they were amazed by her talent and encouraged her to perform publicly. Mike Seeger recorded her singing some of her songs on a home reel-to-reel. These recordings later became the album “Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar.”
In 1958, Libba’s first album was released. She was 62 years old. The album quickly became influential in the folk music world.
In the 1960s, Libba toured around the country, playing her music at concerts and festivals including the Newport Folk Festival, the Chicago Folk Festival, and the Smithsonian Festival. She eventually saved up enough money from her records and touring to move with her daughter and grandchildren to a house she bought in Syracuse, NY.
Libba continued touring and releasing albums well into her eighties. Her songs became increasingly popular and were covered by musical luminaries including the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Mike Seeger, Taj Mahal, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Her musical style helped to shape folk music, influencing many who came after her.
Towards the end of Libba’s life, her raspy voice and unique guitar technique drew attention, respect, and awards from the music industry at large. When Libba was in her early nineties, she won perhaps her greatest honor, the Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording.
In addition to her Grammy, she won the 1972 National Folk Burl Ives Award and was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts. There is also a park in Syracuse, New York, named in Libba’s honor. When Brian Lanker wrote “I Dream A World, Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America,” Libba was included alongside Rosa Parks and Oprah Winfrey.
Libba performed as long as she could. Her last concert took place in the spring of 1987. Not long after, in June of 1987, she passed away.
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Talk to you tomorrow!