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Elizabeth Cotten was a self-taught blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter, born on January 5, 1893, in Carrboro, North Carolina. She passed away on June 29, 1987, in Syracuse, New York, at the age of 94. Cotten developed her unique style of playing the guitar left-handed by holding it upside down, allowing her to play melodies with her thumb and bass lines with her fingers, a technique that became known as "Cotten picking." Cotten wrote most of her music in her early teens, including the well-known song "Freight Train," which she composed at the age of 13. After marrying at 17, she took on work as a maid and stopped playing music for 40 years. It wasn't until she worked for a music lover that she began to teach herself guitar again. In the 1950s, recordings of Cotten were made on reel-to-reel tape, and by 1960, she began performing live for the first time, notably in her first show with other musicians. She continued to perform with various artists throughout her career. The positive reception she received encouraged her to start writing music again. Cotten toured and recorded well into the 1980s and won a Grammy Award for "Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording" in 1984 for her album.

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