Elizabeth 'Libba' Cotton

 Not much new so far around t'interwebbiewatchamacallit . . . . . .so

What do you notice about this picture? Maybe printed the wrong way round as she appears to be playing the guitar left handed? The strings are round the wrong way? !      Nope . . . . . . . . . 

Libba played it like that!

Legendary folk singer/songwriter, Elizabeth 'Libba' Cotten pictured at home playing her guitar. Unlike most left handed guitarists, Elizabeth didn’t restring the guitar and so she developed a unique playing style of picking the three bass strings with her fingers and the three treble strings with her thumb. This is the opposite of the typical way of playing and was later coined as Cotten Pickin’. She wrote 'Freight Train' you know that song dontcha?!

She is a delight . . . here she plays 'Vastapol' . . . . . 

I think I first came across her as Bobby did 'Oh babe it ain't no lie' and I thought 'Gosh I wonder who wrote that lovely song?'

It was Libba . . . . . 

I also think Bobby turned loads of folk onto 'Shake Sugarree' and certainly introduced the Grateful Dead to it . . . . 

Here she is with her 12 year old Granddaughter, Brenda Evans, singing it. Sweet as . . . . . . 

Cotton Picking style ' In The Sweet By n By'

Have a good week everybody!