Elizabeth Cotten
Elizabeth " Libba " Cotten ( born January 5, 1895 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, † June 29, 1987 in Syracuse, New York) was an influential American folk and blues musician. Known to a wider audience, it was only at the age of well over 60 years. The songs of Grammy winner has been picked up by such well-known bands and musicians such as Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary and the Grateful Dead. Your piece Is not Got No Honey Baby Now was recorded in 1940 by Blind Boy Fuller as Lost Lover Blues.
Life
Birth year and date are disputed, some sources say 1892 or 1893 or any other day in January. As a child, Elizabeth Cotten first brought the play on the banjo, then on the guitar even with. They held as left-handed instruments " wrong " around. This resulted in their unique guitar technique in which she played the fingerpicking the melody on the treble strings with the thumb and the alternating bass on the low strings with the index finger.
Elizabeth Cotten is said that they could re-enact songs after they had heard this once. Her best-known piece, Freight Train, she is said to have written at the age of 12 years.
At 11 she left school to work as a housemaid. From self-earned money she bought her first guitar. She performed at parties and festivals. At 15, she married Frank Cotten and soon had a daughter.
Elizabeth Cotten was the music on almost completely. The family moved several times around, including to New York and Washington, DC The marriage with her husband divorced in 1940, and she moved to the family of her daughter Lillie.
The mid- 1940s, she met Ruth Crawford Seeger know when they brought back their daughter, who had lost his way. Elizabeth eventually worked at the Seegers, a very musical family, where she cared for the children Mike, Pete and Peggy.
By accident, Elizabeth was detected musical talent. 1957 Mike Seeger produced their first album, Negro Folk Songs and Tunes, which was republished later as Freight Train and other North Carolina Folk Songs. From 1960, she performed before an audience, usually with Mike Seeger. Meanwhile she was 65 to 68 years old, depending on the year of birth.
Elizabeth Cotten benefited from the folk and blues revival of the 1960s. In 1963, she played on the first Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1964 at the Newport Folk Festival. She performed with blues greats such as Mississippi John Hurt, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, but also gave their own concerts.
In 1967 their second album, Shake Sugaree. In 1984 she won a Grammy for the album Elizabeth Cotten Live!. She was also awarded a National Heritage Fellowship. In 1989, she was ranked among the 75 most influential African American women, where photo- documentation " I Dream a World" was dedicated.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Cotten lived in Syracuse in upstate New York, where she died in 1987, probably 92 years old. It had occurred to the last.