In a country with a sizable chunk of the populace gone mad with racist hate in the midst of a pandemic and a deranged president currently presiding over his crumbling grifter autocracy, we often turn to music just to get us through the week. Folk music and the blues, in their simplicity, often best express the complexity of our lives—our troubles, our personal joy, our pain—while taking on larger issues at the same time.
At the age of 11 (a few sources say 12), Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten wrote a song called ”Freight Train,” which would go on to become a folk classic. Yet she didn’t reap the benefits of her lifelong talent until she was 66 years old and a great-grandmother. To this day, she’s one of the most powerful examples of possibilities, of humility, of endurance—and just setting and getting by, one day at a time.
Welcome to a second round of Black folk music, continued from last Sunday. I hope this helps each of you through yet another day.
As I approach the age of 73, I appreciate more and more those elders who came before me, contributing to our nation’s cultural history—some of them on up into their 90s. In a world that sees us losing so many of these elders due to COVID-19—and in a youth-oriented political climate that often dismisses and disparages those who are now “old”—Cotten stands out as an example of a national elder treasure whose legacy should be celebrated, not forgotten.
This short documentary, made at the time of her 2010 Folk Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award, is an introduction to Elizabeth Nevills “Libba” Cotten.
Smithsonian Folkways, which has distributed many of her albums, has a detailed Cotten biography.
Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Libba Cotten taught herself how to play the banjo and guitar at an early age. Although forbidden to do so, she often borrowed her brother's instruments when he was away, reversing the banjo and guitar to make them easier to play left-handed. Eventually she saved up the $3.75 required to purchase a Stella guitar from a local dry-goods store. Cotten immediately began to develop a unique guitar style characterized by simple figures played on the bass strings in counterpoint to a melody played on the treble strings, a method that later became widely known as "Cotten style."
Cotten’s life was originally set in one direction—housewife, mother, church member—and then it all changed.
Libba married Frank Cotten when she was 15 (not a particularly early age in that era) and had one child, Lily. As Libba became immersed in family life, she spent more time at church, where she was counseled to give up her "worldly" guitar music. It wasn't until many years later that Cotten, due largely to a fortunate chance encounter, was able to build her immense talent into a professional music career. While working at a department store in Washington, D.C., Libba found and returned a very young and lost Peggy Seeger to her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger. A month later, Cotten began work in the household of the famous folk-singing Seeger family.
I call that chance encounter “serendipity.”
One of the things that drew me to Cotten’s story was the fact that she worked as a domestic for white folks, which is a history that so many of us Black folks in America spring from—no matter our current social status. We often forget that even white liberals and leftists had Black servants. She reminded me of my great-aunt, Martha Roberts Varick, who raised my mom. Aunt Martha worked as a domestic in both Virginia and Washington, D.C. for a well-to-do white family who took an interest in her. They ultimately got her a job as the first Black barber to work in a white department store they owned in D.C. When she was “discovered” by the Seegers, Cotten—like Aunt Martha—was working in a segregated business establishment. Lansburgh's department store was a place where Black folks could shop, but they could not sit down at the soda fountain.
The Seegers were not wealthy, according to Pete Seeger.
(H)is stepmother was in a bind: She had a chance to make some money as a teacher, but she had no one to look after her young children. Cotten, needing extra work, took the job. The story goes that Peggy and her brother Mike — “He was the best musician in our family,” Pete said — listened, deeply moved, when Cotten began to play guitar. Before long, Pete said, the children were begging Cotten to let them do the dishes so they could hear her do another song.
Mike Seeger, who died in 2009, "helped develop her genius," Pete said. Once Mike's musical career got underway, he'd often give Cotten a chance to play, until her star burned so brightly that he said: "You don't need me." Cotten's unique style made her an emissary for folk music in its purest form, and also gave her a compelling stage presence.
Libba demonstrates her unique “Cotten picking” fingering techniques here, opening with “Freight Train.” Cotten really gets into it towards the end, then puts her banjo down without a word.
This video picks up where the first ends—Cotten picks up a guitar and performs “Spanish Flang Dang.” She also demonstrates a different “ragtime” playing style.
Cotten’s life story has now become a children’s book to ensure her story is passed along to younger generations.
I love that author, Laura Viers, states that the book teaches kids that “old people can do cool things.”
Those of you who are Grateful Dead fans have probably heard their version of ”Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie.” David Dodd shared some background on the song on the Dead’s website back in 2013.
The song debuted in the Dead’s repertoire during their Warfield run on September 25, 1980, and was then played ten times over the course of the acoustic shows at the Warfield and Radio City Music Hall runs. After that, it made three more appearances, in one-off situations such as an acoustic set at the Mill Valley Recreation Center, or in the Netherlands for an acoustic set,and finally at Marin Vets, on March 28, 1984, in a performance that kicked off the second set, without Weir and Mydland onstage.
However, I know the song had been “around” for much longer than that. It appears on the studio outtakes from Garcia’s Reflections album, as released in the All Good Things box set. And personal interviews with Garcia’s circle of acquaintances in Palo Alto in the early 1960s make it explicitly clear that he was familiar with the work of Libba Cotten.
Cotton’s lyrics are enigmatic.
As she tells the origin story of the tune below, note Cotten’s firm assertion that she would never have sassed an adult. The fact that she got punished for breaking what for her was a taboo (it would have been for any Black child in those days) made her real mad at Miss Mary for lying on her—and this song was the result.
For those who can’t watch the video, the Grateful Dead Lyric and Song Finder offers an edited transcription of Cotten’s explanation of how she came to write the song.
Elizabeth Cotten's original version (which Jerry follows pretty closely) can be found on the Smithsonian/Folkways recording of her work "Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes." Mike Seeger's liner notes say "An unusual blues sung around the Chapel Hill area." In his notes to the song in the "Old-Time String Band Songbook" he similarly says:"A country blues that Elizabeth Cotten learned around her home near Chapel Hill, North Carolina." But Elizabeth Cotten herself indicated she wrote it--in particular the verse "One old woman ...". This is a (slightly edited) transcription from a video of her performing the song:
"They asked me to do 'Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie'. That's the song I wrote about a lady who lived next door to us. My mother had to go to work and this lady would teach children. She told my mother something: made my mother punish me. They hurt me all the day. 'Cause I know what she told my mum was not true.
"That song's 'bout me getting punished. My feelings got hurt, 'cause I did not do what Miss Mary said I did. And I used cry in a bed, and a little verse came to me, a pretty tune came to me, and I made a little song, a little tune I love.
"I used sit on this long porch we had at home. She lived here [Cotten gestures to her left]. I said, 'Glad to see you like to see' so she could hear me.
I was sitting and sing this song, as loud as I want to. And it was about her, and I get playing, and she said to me, 'Sis, that's a pretty song you sang!' You know what I want to say, don't you? 'It's about you!' But I wasn't dare say to let her know. I just say, 'Thank you.' I wasn't daresay to let her know. I didn't let my mother know this little verse was about her, cause mama would punish me sur 'nuff I guess.
And now, they both dead, and they don't know. And don't hear--I don't reckon they do? (laugh) You think they do? Anyway, I feel free to explain and sing it!"
I’ll close Cotten’s part of today’s story with her classic, “Shake Sugaree.” Cotten plays guitar with her great-granddaughter Brenda Evans on vocals. As noted above, this is a song she wrote while playing with her great-grandkids and letting them write their own lyrics, so Evans’ singing is particularly fitting.
Cotten’s guitar is now a prized item in the Smithsonian. The city of Syracuse, New York was her final resting place, and is home to the Libba Cotton Grove park. In 1983, just four years before her death, Cotten was named Syracuse's first Living Treasure.
Cotten’s heritage continues: North Carolina has produced a modern day folk and musical phenomenon named Rhiannon Giddens, who honors her elders and the music that came before her. Here’s her 2015 rendition of “Shake Sugaree.”
Rhiannon Giddens was born Feb. 21, 1977, in Greensboro, North Carolina. A recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2017, she tells her own story in this short video, including her desire to reclaim the banjo as a key instrument in African American music history.
The MacArthur Fellows Program website offers a bit more about Giddens.
In her recordings and live performances, Giddens has mined the history of the African American string band tradition, introducing new audiences to the black banjoists and fiddlers whose influences have been left out of popular narratives of the lineage of folk and country music. Giddens is a native of the Piedmont region of North Carolina, and she trained as an opera singer before returning to North Carolina to immerse herself in traditional American roots music through study of archival recordings and the mentorship of the octogenarian fiddler Joe Thompson. Having honed her skills on the fiddle and 5-string banjo, she co-founded with two other bandmates the Carolina Chocolate Drops in order to share this tradition with a new generation of listeners. More recently, Giddens has released two solo albums. Tomorrow Is My Turn (2015) offers riveting interpretations of songs that were written or made famous by women, spanning folk, bluegrass, country, gospel, jazz, Celtic, and other genres. Freedom Highway (2017) consists mainly of original compositions by Giddens, and the album traverses the experience of African Americans from slavery to the present. Drawing inspiration from slave narratives, early twentieth-century songwriters such as Mississippi John Hurt, and even a rap about police violence written by her nephew, Freedom Highway is at once a recuperation of suppressed voices and a history lesson.
With extraordinary vocal abilities and emotional range afforded by her classical training, Giddens is a powerful presence on stage, and her explanations of the historical and social contexts for the music she performs further demonstrate how discrete musical approaches can inform one another. Giddens's drive to understand and convey the nuances, complexities, and interrelationships between musical traditions is enhancing our musical present with a wealth of sounds and textures from the past.
Many folk, blues, and bluegrass fans first became aware of Giddens via the Grammy-Award winning Carolina Chocolate Drops.
The Chocolate Drops got their start in 2005 with Giddens, Flemons and fiddle player Justin Robinson, who amicably left the group in 2011. The Durham, North Carolina-based trio would travel every Thursday night to the home of old-time fiddler and songster Joe Thompson to learn tunes, listen to stories and, most importantly, to jam. Joe was in his 80s, a black fiddler with a short bowing style that he inherited from generations of family musicians. Now he was passing those same lessons onto a new generation. When the three students decided to form a band, they didn’t have big plans. It was mostly a tribute to Joe, a chance to bring his music back out of the house again and into dancehalls and public places.
With their 2010 Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig—which garnered a Best Traditional Folk Album Grammy—the Carolina Chocolate Drops proved that the old-time, fiddle and banjo-based music they’d so scrupulously researched and passionately performed could be a living, breathing, ever-evolving sound. Starting with material culled from the Piedmont region of the Carolinas, they sought to freshly interpret this work, not merely recreate it, highlighting the central role African-Americans played in shaping our nation’s popular music from its beginnings more than a century ago. The virtuosic trio’s approach was provocative and revelatory. Their concerts, The New York Times declared, were “an end-to-end display of excellence... They dip into styles of southern black music from the 1920s and ’30s—string- band music, jug-band music, fife and drum, early jazz—and beam their curiosity outward. They make short work of their instructive mission and spend their energy on things that require it: flatfoot dancing, jug playing, shouting.”
The band members demonstrate their virtuosity and talk about their embrace of tradition in this TED Talk.
Giddens would move on from the Chocolate Drops to a solo career that has crossed races, nationalities, and boundaries. Though her audiences are still very white, Giddens never loses sight of who she is: a person who is Black, with white relatives (including her father).
The Guardian explored some of the complexity of Giddens and her work in this 2018 feature.
‘We’re all racist to some degree,” says Rhiannon Giddens. “Just like we’re all privileged to some degree. I have privilege in my system because I’m light-skinned. I hear people say, ‘I didn’t have it easy growing up either.’ But when did it become a competition?” As someone on a mission to bridge such divides, Giddens thinks about this stuff a lot. The Grammy-winning singer and songwriter was born to a white father and a black mother in Greensboro, North Carolina, in the late 1970s. Her parents married only three years after the landmark Loving v Virginia decision, which reversed the anti-miscegenation laws that had made interracial marriage illegal. Their union was still shocking enough that her father was disinherited.
While much has changed in the 40 years that Giddens has been alive, her latest album, Freedom Highway, is a powerful testament to the inequality and injustice that remain. It opens with At the Purchaser’s Option, a devastating track inspired by an 1830s advert for a female slave whose nine-month-old baby could also be included in the sale. “It was kind of a statement to put that one first,” says Giddens. “If you can get past that, you’ll probably survive the rest.”
Other songs span various aspects of African American history, from the civil rights era to Black Lives Matter, while revealing the breadth of her musical influences. Soul, blues, gospel, jazz, zydeco – her versatile voice wraps itself around them all. It also proves a wonderful counterpoint to her nephew Justin Harrington’s rap on the funky Better Get it Right the First Time, a song she wrote in response to police violence (“Did you stand your ground / is that why they took you down?”). The lyrics came tragically close to home when she performed it in Dallas just a few days after the shooting of 15-year-old Texan Jordan Edwards, who, like the song’s protagonist, was a bright young student shot dead as he left a party with friends. “People say, ‘I’m tired of thinking about race, it’s a drag.’ Yeah, well, welcome to my life! I don’t care who you are. We have the time and the headspace for this stuff. The least you can do is take a moment.”
As a Black genealogist who has spent years wading through published slave narratives, I was very taken by Giddens’ work on the Songs of Our Native Daughters album, which also introduced me to new sisters to follow.
Songs of Our Native Daughters shines new light on African-American women’s stories of struggle, resistance, and hope. Pulling from and inspired by 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century sources, including slave narratives and early minstrelsy, kindred banjo players Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell reinterpret and create new works from old ones. With unflinching, razor-sharp honesty, they confront sanitized views about America’s history of slavery, racism, and misogyny from a powerful, black female perspective.
The video below offers deep insight into not only the writing of “Mama’s Cryin’ Long,” but also into the slave narrative that inspired it.
Lars Gotrich reviewed the album in December 2018 for NPR.
Each member of Our Native Daughters contributes songs, harmonies and instruments to the record, reaching back to their ancestors and experiencing parallels within their own lives. Giddens brought "Mama's Cryin' Long" to the group, as she explains in a short documentary about the recording. The words stem from a slave narrative about a woman who stabs an overseer after being raped repeatedly; the killing is turned into a song by a child who saw the blood stains on the dress.
Giddens takes the lead vocal as McCalla, Russell and Kiah respond in unison, accompanied only by a handclap and drum. The story is told in short fragments — "Mama's hands are shakin' (and she can't get up) ... It was late at night (when she got the knife) ... She went to his room (when she got the knife)... Mama's dress is red (it was white before)" — that drive toward the end. The performance leaves the quartet visibly shaken, but embedded in the harrowing end seems to be hope: "Mama's in the tree (and she can't come down) ... Mama's flyin' free (and she can't come down) / Mama's flyin' free (and she won't come down)."
Giddens’ grasp of history—and specifically the history of the banjo as an instrument played by Black musicians—is illustrated in this clip from David Weintraub’s 2017 documentary, A Great American Tapestry: The Many Strands of Mountain Music.
In keeping with her commitment to social activism, Giddens just released a fundraising effort for Global Giving’s Coronavirus Relief Fund. It offers her take on the recently departed Bill Withers’ amazing classic, “Just the Two of Us,” and offers a moving slideshow of folks in quarantine as well as front-line workers in both North Carolina and New York hospitals.
Thanks for joining me on this musical journey today. I had planned to cover Josh White, Taj Mahal, Richie Havens, and Tracy Chapman in today’s episode, but ran out of time and space. This endless well of music should keep you coming back in the Sundays ahead.
I hope this music has lifted your spirits as it has mine. Sending peace, love, and a reminder to stay at home … and to vote.
