Years later, a couple of her albums were acquired and this Smithsonian Folkways release is the first part of an amazing story. Cotten, who was born in 1895 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, learned to play guitar upside down in her distinctive finger-picking style as a young girl, married, raised a family, divorced and was working in a department store in Washington, D.C. when she returned a lost child to her family.
It turned out the child was Peggy Seeger of the well-known musical family, including her older half-brother Pete, the famed folk singer, and her brother Mike, compiler of this recording. Hired to work for the Seeger family, Cotten saw a guitar on the wall of the home, stated that she used to play and "started playing again, recalling one by one many of the songs and tunes of her childhood and youth."
That led to her being recorded by Mike Seeger in 1957 and 1958 with the result being this album with the very long title, but a great many attractions. The main one is that Cotten was remarkably dexterous and played the guitar and banjo with great senstitvity and skill. Another is that her fragile voice rings with authenciity and the weight of experience for someone in her early sixties who'd raised a family and worked for decades. Finally, the material is beautiful, constituting the marriage of folk and blues that made so much of the folk revival of the time so interesting.
Cotten's "Freight Train," which she wrote in her pre-teen years, became well-known, but there are other excellent songs, like "Oh, Babe, It Ain't No Lie," "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad," and a trio of medleys. It's stated that she recorded many of the pieces on this phenomenal record at her home, while her grandchildren silently watched and listened. This makes this one of the more interesting "live albums" you could imagine from a musician of immense talent and charm!
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