Elizabeth Cotten was only a little girl when she picked up a guitar for the first time. It wasn't hers (it was her big brother's), and it wasn't strung right for her (she was left-handed). But she flipped that guitar upside down and backwards and taught herself how to play it anyway. By age eleven, she'd written "Freight Train," one of the most famous folk songs of the twentieth century. And by the end of her life, people everywhere from the sunny beaches of California to the rolling hills of England knew her music.
Themes
Genres: Non-Fiction
Categories: Biography, Cross Group, Oppression & Resilience
Content: Economic Struggle
Settings: New York, North Carolina, United States of America, Washington D.C.
Ethnicity: Unspecified
Gender: Boy/Man, Girl/Woman
Race/Culture: Black/African/African American, White/European American/Caucasian
Religion: Christian
Cross Group Sub: Central, Direct, Positive
Character Prominence: Dominant Main, Secondary