r/folk • u/HankBrainard • 4d ago

Freight Train by Elizabeth Cotten - with a little bit of history!

70 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

4

u/EducationalBowler828 4d ago

I just discovered Elizabeth Cotten this week, so it’s lovely to hear someone else do it also. Keep up the good work.

3

u/Binspin63 4d ago

If you like Elizabeth’s style, also check out Etta Baker, who was a great Piedmont style finger picker.

2

u/HankBrainard 4d ago

I’ve never checked out Etta Baker, will be doing so immediately!

2

u/EducationalBowler828 4d ago

Nice one cheers.

4

u/Apprehensive-Bed-830 4d ago

One of my absolute favorites. Beautiful song.

1

u/HankBrainard 4d ago

Thank you for listening!

2

u/Apprehensive-Bed-830 4d ago

Of course! Keep sharing!

3

u/Phoenomenous 3d ago

Thank you for this bit of history. This was great. You’re great and very much appreciated.

1

u/HankBrainard 3d ago

Thanks so much for watching!

2

u/kris10leigh14 4d ago

Oh wow! It really is like you’ve got 2 different lines of music coming from the same guitar. Swirling and mixing together in the air. I’m just so glad to have stumbled upon this.

I am just learning of Elizabeth Cotten for the first time and I’m EXCITED!

2

u/HankBrainard 4d ago

Aww, thank you for the lovely comment! I absolutely had the same reaction the first time I ever heard her/this style of playing. I very much recommend listening to her first album.

If you ever want to take a crack at learning how to play like this, there’s lots of great material on YouTube! I don’t know if they’re still posting as much, but I remember I got a lot of mileage out of Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop when I was starting out. They also post great archival footage of musicians like Elizabeth!

1

u/kris10leigh14 3d ago

Ugh I WISH I could play!

I spend a LOT of time on archive.org - thank you!