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110%er [5406]
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A little known guitar player...... Elizabeth Cotten
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Jul 6, 2024, 3:04 PM
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"Libba Cotten is an icon in the world of American folk and blues music and has influenced many guitarists. She learned to play a right-handed guitar upside down since she was left-handed. She worked as a maid for Pete Seegar's family.
"Freight Train" was originslly written by her:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzGbwvApDic
It's worth a google search to read her biography.
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Re: A little known guitar player...... Elizabeth Cotten
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Jul 6, 2024, 3:32 PM
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Outstanding ....... love her playing what looks like a Martin 00-18 left handed with strings on for a right handed guitar. In other words she just picked up a right handed guitar and learned to play left handed.
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Re: A little known guitar player...... Elizabeth Cotten
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Jul 6, 2024, 3:55 PM
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That's right. She first learned to play her brother's banjo - and also played it left-handed. Banjo picking is quite different than guitar since the banjo's lowest string (for a right-hander) is a higher note, whereas on a guitar it's the lowest note.
What I hear in her style (whach is called "Cotten Pickin') is a distinct banjo influence - particularly in the interplay of the string rythmns.
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110%er [7766]
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Re: A little known guitar player...... Elizabeth Cotten
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Jul 6, 2024, 4:33 PM
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That’s pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.
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Re: A little known guitar player...... Elizabeth Cotten
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Jul 6, 2024, 4:45 PM
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I found this interesting.
"Rediscovery
edit
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, and the mother was the composer Ruth Crawford Seeger. Soon after this, Cotten again began working as a maid, this time for Ruth Crawford Seeger and Charles Seeger, and caring for their children, Mike, Peggy, Barbara, and Penny. The Seeger family kids, who were too young to pronounce "Elizabeth", began calling her "Libba", and she embraced that nickname later in life.[20] While working with the Seegers (a voraciously musical family that included Pete Seeger, 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.[14]"
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110%er [5406]
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Re: A little known guitar player...... Elizabeth Cotten
Jul 6, 2024, 5:08 PM
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That was really cool. Thanks
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Re: A little known guitar player...... Elizabeth Cotten
Jul 6, 2024, 6:38 PM
[ in reply to Re: A little known guitar player...... Elizabeth Cotten ] |
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That was really neat. Looks like she owned a number of different guitars over the years ..... mostly good ones like the Gibson and in her later years the Martin 00 or 000-18.
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Re: A little known guitar player...... Elizabeth Cotten
Jul 6, 2024, 6:44 PM
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Lots of good old piedmont blues players in the archives.
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