Elizabeth Cotten 2022 rock and roll hall of fame

[ssstewart]

elizabeth Cotten is to receive recognition with an "early Influencer Award" at this year hall of fame ceremonies...FINALLY!

the pioneer who wrote Freight train at the age of only 11yrs!
and then years later.....
While working briefly at a department store in the late 1940s, Cotten helped a lost little girl find her mother, and was offered a job as a maid for the family. The little girl was Peggy Seeger, who would go on to find folk-singing fame, and her mother was Ruth Crawford Seeger, a composer and folk music specialist. Cotten began doing the “washing, cleaning and baking” for the family of folk lovers — Charles Seeger, the patriarch, was a well-known musicologist; brother Mike was a musician and folklorist; and Pete Seeger was Peggy’s half brother — and it wasn’t long before she picked up a guitar and blew their minds.

‘’When she worked for us,” Mike Seeger says, “I’d be playing a song in the kitchen and she’d be doing something there. Then she would play the song back to me and say, ‘Do you know that song?’ And I’d say, ‘Well, I’m not sure,’ and she’d say, ‘Well, you just sang it and played it.’ But it would sound different — she would make it her own.’”

Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten was born in 1893 near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her mother was a cook, and her father was “a sometime moonshiner who also set dynamite in iron mines.” Libba Cotten began borrowing her brother’s banjo (against his wishes) from a very young age — “My head was always full of music,” she said — and around age nine she saved her wages and bought her own Sears, Roebuck guitar. (She was already working as a domestic, making 75 cents a month.)

Because she was left-handed, Cotten taught herself to play by turning her brother’s banjo upside down so her right hand was on the fretboard and her left picked the strings. Most notably, this also meant she played the treble notes with her thumb and the lower bass notes with her fingers. Her smooth, masterful two-finger picking, which sounds warm and full, became her signature style, known as “Cotten-picking,” and it’s worth watching vintage video of a cardiganed Cotten playing “Freight Train” or “In the Sweet By and By,” her eyes gently closed as she plucks the notes.

This news made my day

[rollypolly]

She was so good, one with her guitar.

[The Bard Rocks]

I got to see her live once, well past her prime but I wasn't going to miss that chance! But, what is the connection with rock and roll?

[PeterM]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

I got to see her live once, well past her prime but I wasn't going to miss that chance! But, what is the connection with rock and roll?

Same connection to rock and roll as Dolly Parton

Hall of fame is such a joke

[frankmcr]

Well, if it brings her some well-deserved attention I'm certainly OK with it.

I was surprised to find (looking it up just now) that she's not in the Blues Hall of Fame (in Memphis).

[mcmars]

She did win a fitting award with the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1984, just 3 years before her death. The have a nice write up on her on their website: "Elizabeth Cotten
African-American Songster/Songwriter
1984 NEA National Heritage Fellow
Syracuse, New York

courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler
Folklife Archives & Collections

Bio
Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten was born in January 1892 near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As a child, she liked to play with her brother's banjo, and pick out tunes on the instrument "upside down." Like her brother, she was left-handed, and it was more comfortable to hold the banjo upside down so she could play it with her left hand.

When she was nine years old, Cotten was forced to leave school and work as a domestic in the homes of white people. At age twelve, she had a live-in job in Chapel Hill, earning a dollar a month that her mother saved to buy her first guitar, a Stella. Cotten taught herself to play, first laying the instrument flat on her lap and picking one string at a time. Later, she began to master complete chords, picking the guitar upside down, in a manner similar to the way she had tried to play the banjo.

By the age of fourteen, Cotten was able to perform a relatively large repertoire of rags and dance tunes, some of her own composition, all decorated with her distinctive lyrical musicality. She often stayed up into the night playing her guitar and didn't cease until her mother woke up and scolded her to go to bed.

In her teens, she experienced a religious conversion and the deacons of her new church encouraged her to stop playing "worldly" music because that was "for the devil." At first, it was difficult for her to "put down her instrument," but her commitment to the church was tenacious, and gradually she honored their request and stopped playing the guitar for almost fifty years.

Cotten recalled that getting married to her husband, Frank Cotten, helped her stop playing because she was busy being a new wife, keeping house, and becoming a mother. To supplement her husband's income without going out to work, Cotten took in washing and ironing. All of these things kept her busy and eventually she forgot about the guitar.

In 1943, Cotten moved to Washington, D.C., to be near her grown daughter when her baby was born and to help care for her family. She did day work (cleaning) and sold dolls in Lansburgh's department store during the holiday rush. One of her customers, Mrs. Ruth Crawford Seeger, was so taken with the gentle way Cotten interacted with the Seeger children in the store that she offered to hire her. After the holidays, Cotten left the store and began working for the Seeger family. The Seeger home contained several instruments, and it was there that Cotten resumed playing the guitar. She used to sit in the dining room and play. One day the Seegers heard her playing and asked her to teach them how to play that song she had been playing. It was called "Freight Train," a "make-up" song she wrote for a family gathering when she was only twelve years old.

"We used to go over to the railroad track and play," she said. "We'd take straight pins, lay them on the railroad track and make little alphabets out of them. We'd know just about the time when the train was either coming or going, and the train would run over the pins and mash them together, stick them right together, and we'd have a little box of alphabets of pins.... After that, me and my brother, we'd have to cut wood. We would each have a song, he had his and I had mine. We used to sing about trains. That was the beginning of me writing 'Freight Train,' right about then. That was a long time ago...."

Cotten credited the Seegers for helping her to rediscover playing and singing. The Seegers are a family of musicologists, composers, collectors, and performers. Initially under their sponsorship, Cotten began performing in concerts and festivals nationwide, and made several recordings prior to her death in 1987."

[Silurian]

If Cotten is an "early influencer" should Beethoven be inducted as an influencer of neoclassical shredding?

[drive-south]

The R&R HOF Is def a joke. Anyone see Rush being inducted? Alex Leifson had the weirdest acceptance speech ever. Really stuck his finger in the eye of the HOF.

Steve Miller also dumped on the HOF when he was added.

And that building??

If I recall they have inducted many people that had nothing to do with R&R. Lots of Motown, Sinatra, etc.

[jaymarsch]

Well, at least the category made sense. An early influencer. Rock music is derived from many styles of music so it is not so far fetched. I was outraged that it took Todd Rundgren so long to get in. He should have gone in on the first time he was eligible, IMHO. Great songwriting.
When it comes to artists/musicians, it seems that there are those who get more recognition than their talent warrants and others whose genius gets overlooked.
Best,
Jayne

[The Bard Rocks]

Originally Posted by PeterM

Same connection to rock and roll as Dolly Parton

Hall of fame is such a joke

Suspicions confirmed. Did I read that Dolly declined the honor?

[619TF]

Originally Posted by drive-south

The R&R HOF Is def a joke. Anyone see Rush being inducted? Alex Leifson had the weirdest acceptance speech ever. Really stuck his finger in the eye of the HOF.

Steve Miller also dumped on the HOF when he was added.

And that building??

If I recall they have inducted many people that had nothing to do with R&R. Lots of Motown, Sinatra, etc.

Indeed HOF has become more of a business and less relevant over the years. Nevertheless, as someone who has been there I assure you that the building is actually pretty cool and might be the best part of the whole experience FWIW.

[madhat]

cool!

madhat.

[Graylocks]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

Suspicions confirmed. Did I read that Dolly declined the honor?

Parton declined when nominated but the ballots had already gone out and she was still voted in. Ultimately she was convinced that the HOF honors more than just R&R and she accepted the induction.

Many of the inductees over the years have left me scratching my head. It would make more sense if they changed their name to reflect the range of who is inducted.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by drive-south

The R&R HOF Is def a joke. Anyone see Rush being inducted? Alex Leifson had the weirdest acceptance speech ever. Really stuck his finger in the eye of the HOF.

If you look up "eloquence" in the dictionary, there is a link to Alex's speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i2ZbJnkFEY

[Joe Beamish]

Originally Posted by drive-south

The R&R HOF Is def a joke. Anyone see Rush being inducted? Alex Leifson had the weirdest acceptance speech ever. Really stuck his finger in the eye of the HOF.

Steve Miller also dumped on the HOF when he was added.

And that building??

If I recall they have inducted many people that had nothing to do with R&R. Lots of Motown, Sinatra, etc.

A “hall of fame” is antithetical to rock n’ roll in my book.