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K-Gr 3—As a child, Elizabeth Cotten, or Libba, heard a song everywhere she went, reverberating through the clear North Carolina air around her home. Sneaking into her brother's room one day, she began to play his guitar—upside down and backwards, since she was left-handed and the guitar was for right-handers. What came afterward is the beginning of a chapter in music history: "Freight Train," a song that lives in the annals of U.S. folk music. Veirs details Cotten's early determination to play guitar and the long deferment ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

In this picture-book biography of ?folk musician Elizabeth Cotten (1893-1987), a straightforward narrative describes her modest upbringing in rural North Carolina, where "Libba" taught herself to play her brother's right-handed guitar despite having no musical training and being herself left-handed. No matter: "She turned the guitar upside down and played it backwards...Nobody else played that way, but it was the way that felt right to Libba." The backwards fingerpicking would become her trademark, but not until much, much lat...Log In or Sign Up to Read More