Elizabeth Cotten

North Carolina · born or raised1893–1987

American blues and folk musician, singer and songwriter (1893-1987)

Born in Chapel Hill

Quotations with a citation

No one helped me. Everything I play for y’all tonight, I give myself credit, ’cause nobody helped me

We'd take straight pins, lay them on the railroad track and make little alphabets out of them. We'd know just about the time when the train was either coming or going, and the train would run over the pins and mash them together, stick them right together, and we'd have a little box of alphabets of pins.... After that, me and my brother, we'd have to cut wood. We would each have a song, he had his and I had mine. We used to sing about trains. That was the beginning of me writing 'Freight Train,' right about then.