Elizabeth Cotten
1895-1987

Elizabeth Cotten was born Elizabeth Nevills in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Born into a musical family, she began playing her brothers banjo at the age of eight, and soon moved on to the guitar. She taught herself how to play the instrument, but with no conventional knowledge of tunings or techniques she developed her own unique style known as ‘Cotton Style.’ She played the guitar left-handed, using her fingers to play alternating bass patterns and her thumb to pick out the melody. It’s basically Travis picking upside-down. She composed the timeless ‘Freight Train’ at age twelve when she saw a train pass her house, but it wasn’t recorded until 50 years later when she was working as a housekeeper for Pete Seeger who rediscovered her. She performed her first show at the age of 68.

“While working for a brief stint in a department store, Cotten helped a child wandering through the aisles find her mother. The child was Peggy Seeger, and the mother was Ruth Crawford Seeger of the Charles Seeger Family. Soon after this, Elizabeth again began working as a maid, caring for the Seeger’s children Mike, Pete, and Peggy. While working with the Seegers (a voraciously musical family) she remembered her own guitar playing from 40 years prior and picked up the instrument again to start from scratch.”(1)

During the later half of the 1950s, Mike Seeger began making bedroom reel to reel recordings of Cotten’s songs in her house. The culmination of these recordings would later go on the album Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar, which was released on Folkways Records. Since its release, her songs, especially her signature track, “Freight Train,” written when she was 11, have been covered by Peter, Paul, and Mary, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Matt Valentine, Laura Veirs, and Taj Mahal. Shortly afterwards, she began playing selected joint shows with Mike Seeger, the first of which was in 1960 at Swarthmore College. One of her songs, “Ain’t Got No Honey Baby Now,” was a Blind Boy Fuller song recorded under the title of “Lost Lover Blues” in 1940.”(2)

Click here to read our article Freight Train Derailed

Recommended Listening:

As with a lot of the musicians discussed here, its hard to identify any one album as ‘definitive,’ they all have something to offer, even if it’s alternate versions of songs you already know. Elizabeth Cotten’s case is no different, but to cut straight to the heart of her playing we feel these two albums cover everything you need. Completists need not worry, there is a plethora of material to collect.

Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes

Recorded in her bedroom in 1957 by the Seeger’s, this album truly captures the spirit and feel of Elizabeth’s music and technique. A must have.

Shake Sugaree

This 26 track compilation of recordings from ’65-’66 contains 10 previously unreleased tracks and captures Elizabeth in her glory.

For Further Study:

The Guitar of Elizabeth Cotten

Sources:
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cotten
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cotten#Later_career_and_recordings

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Nine Pound Hacksaw

As you can probably guess, this is a new arrangement of the classic ‘Nine Pound Hammer’ based on Merle Travis’s version and played in the key of E. It’s a simple three chord blues progressions with a strong melody on top. The challenge in this piece is to keep a tight, strong, snappy rhythm, while making sure the melody rings out loud and clear.

Note that the intro needs to be played only once, the final bar ends with the intro notes, taking you right back to the top.

Nine Pound Hacksaw

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The Caravan Exercise

The song Caravan was written by Juan Tizol and recorded by Duke Ellington in 1937. Since then has been performed by thousands of artists in styles ranging from jazz to bluegrass, surf to rap, and everything in between. A lot of people are surprised to learn that there are actually lyrics to this song, as it’s often performed as an instrumental.
The melody is simple yet sounds very exotic, evocative and arresting.

In this simplified arrangement we use only the intro over an alternating bass pattern. It may look and sound simple, and it is – but its actually quite challenging to keep a solid rhythm while letting the melody sing out. For some reason, this piece is very confusing to your fingers. Start slowly, and if it helps try playing the bass and the melody separately until you get a feel for the arrangement, then put them together.

Caravan Excercise

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By this point you should find your fingers becoming more coordinated and your thumb growing independent. This means it will now take less conscious effort as your motor skills will begin to take over the repetitive parts and you can concentrate on some of the more exciting aspects of your playing.

If you haven’t quite got the swing of things yet, don’t worry. The more time you invest into the exercises and patterns in the previous section, the faster you’ll develop. We all progress as different rates, so don’t let the amount of time its taking discourage you or become a factor. Ideally one hour a day will get you along the way a lot faster than one hour a week, so put in as much time as you can afford to without letting it get stale or boring. To give you a little perspective, it’s been said Lenny Breau practiced for ten hours a day, and then would go out and play all night. That’s incredible dedication on top of a natural gift.

Unfortunately, not many of us can afford to invest that much time, so put in as much as you can manage. Once you’ve mastered the material in section two, continue to use the exercises as warm-ups to loosen up your fingers and keep the muscle memory working. If you can fit in ten minutes a day before you start, you’ll find it will really improve your playing.

Our next step will be to apply these new found skills to a few basic song structures, songsercises if you will. If you find when learning the following material you regularly lose the beat and spend a lot of time trying to figure out where your thumb is supposed to go next, take it slowly, one bar at a time. If you’re still having problems, go back to chapter two and find the exercise that gives you’re the most trouble and put in a little more time. It’s important to keep in mind that these are skills you’re learning, they won’t develop instantly overnight so don’t rush ahead of the fundamentals.

Finally, remember this; it’s not always as easy as it looks, it’s usually easier.
Things are about to get interesting.

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Willie Brown
August 6, 1900 – December 30, 1952

[No known photograph exists]

Born in Clarkdale, Mississippi, Willie Brown (not to be confused with the blues guitarist William Brown from Arkansas) was among the earliest blues musicians, a talented guitarist and singer whose playing had a tremendous influence on the development of Delta Blues. His heavy driving, passionate and powerful yet intricate playing style helped lay the foundation for later generations of players like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.

Brown wasn’t the most prolific writer; he’s thought to have written very few songs. Only three solo recordings are known to exist, M&O Blues, Future Blues, and Make Me up a Pallet on your Floor. Its been debated that Rowdy Blues by Kid Bailey is Brown playing under a pseudonym, while others maintain he was on the recording but playing accompaniment. He much preferred playing as a sideman for other musicians and was in high demand as an accompanist. Some of his more notable partners were Charlie Patton and Son House.

Very little is known of his later years. He continued playing with Son House until his death at age 52 in Tunica, Mississippi. It was at this time Son House stopped playing completely until he was rediscovered years later.

His name was immortalized in the Robert Johnson song ‘Crossroads.’

You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
I got the crossroad blues this mornin’ Lord,
babe, I’m sinkin down

Recommended Listening:

Friends of Charlie Patton

This is a fantastic compilation put together by Yazoo Records containing two of his three solo performances and showcasing many friends and contemporaries including; Son House, Bukka White, the infamous aforementioned Kid Bailey, Tommy Johnson, Louise Johnson, Ishman Bracey and Bertha Lee. Yazoo puts out some of the best compilations going, unfortunately a lot of their earlier releases sound like they were taken straight from the old 78’s and plopped on CD with very little remastering. This means hisses, pops, and noisy recordings. On the other hand, where else are you going to hear this stuff?

As an Accompanist:

Primeval Blues, Rags and Gospel Songs, Charlie Patton

King of the Delta Blues, Son House

For Further Study:

Delta Blues, Book by Stefan Grossman

Delta Blues Guitar, Book and CD by Stefan Grossman

101 Mississippi Delta Blues Fingerpicking Licks, by Larry McCabe

Blues From The Delta, by William Ferris

Trivia:

In the 1986 movie Crossroads, Ralph Macchio’s search for a missing Robert Johnson song turns up an aged Willie Johnson played by Joe Seneca. Together they embark on an adventure down to the delta. A goofy but enjoyable movie.

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A Few Chords and How They Work (Part Two)

Part 2:

The following chart shows five common positions for the 7th chord, the root is noted with a diamond (note: the numbers 1-5 across the top are there to identify these forms for our purposes, they aren’t the proper names).  Depending on the chord and position you may be able to utilize open strings as well, for example C7 using the 4th position will sound fine if you let the high and low E strings ring out, but a D#7 with the same form will sound very dissonant. Directly below are some examples of how to alter these forms to get the 9th and 13th.

Read more…

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