Freight Train Thread. Well, it's not exactly blues, per se.

[BoomBoomBigelow]

But we don't have a folk sub-forum, so since blues is generally considered folk music, here you go.
The oirginal, as performed by the author.










Discuss.

 

[Gary Blanchard]

The amazing thing about Elizabeth Cotten is that she did not re-string the guitar. she actually played it upside-down and still had that amazing style.


She once was employed as a housekeeper by the Seeger family.

Cotten had retired from the guitar for 25 years, except for occasional church performances. It wasn't until she reached her 60s that she began recording and performing publicly. She was discovered by the folk-singing Seeger family while she was working for them as a housekeeper.

While working for a brief stint in a department store, Cotten helped a child wandering through the aisles find her mother. The child was Penny Seeger, and the mother was composer Ruth Crawford Seeger. Soon after this, Elizabeth again began working as a maid, caring for Ruth Crawford Seeger and Charles Seeger's children, Mike, Peggy, Barbara, and Penny. 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 relearn almost from scratch.

 

[Gary Blanchard]

Also, Jerry Garcia included Shake Sugaree on the Grateful Dead's Reckoning album to bring her some much-needed royalty money.

 

[BoomBoomBigelow]

The amazing thing about Elizabeth Cotten is that she did not re-string the guitar. she actually played it upside-down and still had that amazing style..

Jimi Hendrix taught her that.

She once was employed as a housekeeper by the Seeger family.

Didn't know that. Interesting.

 

[BoomBoomBigelow]

Also, Jerry Garcia included Shake Sugaree on the Grateful Dead's Reckoning album to bring her some much-needed royalty money.

She wrote that? It's one of my fave Dead songs.
Thanks Gary! You old guys are full of it.

Interesting knowledge, that is.

And by "you old guys", I mean "us old guys".

 

[Gary Blanchard]

My wife often comments on my great storehouse of useless knowledge.

Back to Freight Train, it is an absolutely wonderful song. I have never been able to play it the way it should be played, so it has never been in my songlist.

 

[micwalt]

Great song. I especially enjoyed the third video.

 

[tgk03]

We saw her on Austin City Limits eons ago. The performance resonated with my daughter. If I start fingerpicking, she will start singing Freight Train.

 

[Tralfaz]

Back to Freight Train, it is an absolutely wonderful song. I have never been able to play it the way it should be played, so it has never been in my songlist.

I included in my set back when I was doing acoustic open mikes, but I was never happy with my arrangement and dropped it after awhile. There was no clamor for its return.

Anyhow, I never realized she was playing the guitar upside down.

 

[Gary Blanchard]

 

[Modern Saint]

Besides the middle (third) video, Elizabeth Cotten has me entrigued and how she plays the guitar reversed strung for a right hander.