Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten (née Nevills; January 5, 1893 – June 29, 1987)[1][2][3] was an influential American folk and blues musician.

"[6] Her album Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar (1958), was placed into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, and was deemed as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The album included her signature recording "Freight Train", a song she wrote in her early teens.

[14] Although self-taught, she became proficient at playing the instrument,[16] and her repertoire included a large number of rags and dance tunes.

Elizabeth, Frank and their daughter Lillie moved around the eastern United States for a number of years, between North Carolina, New York City, and Washington, D.C., finally settling in the D.C. area.

While working briefly in a department store, Cotten helped a child wandering through the aisles find her mother.

The Seeger family kids, who were too young to pronounce "Elizabeth", began calling her "Libba", and she embraced that nickname later in life.

[14] In the later half of the 1950s, Mike Seeger began making bedroom reel-to-reel recordings of Cotten's songs in her house.

Since the release of that album, her songs, especially her signature song, "Freight Train" — which she wrote when she was a teenager — have been covered by Peter, Paul, and Mary, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Joe Dassin, Joan Baez, Devendra Banhart, Laura Gibson, Laura Veirs, Tommy Emmanuel, His Name Is Alive, Doc Watson, Taj Mahal, Geoff Farina, Esther Ofarim and Country Teasers.

British songwriters Paul James and Fred Williams subsequently misappropriated it as their own composition and copyrighted it.

Under advice from his manager (Bill Varley), McDevitt then brought in folk-singer Nancy Whiskey and re-recorded the song with her doing the vocal; the result was a chart hit.

The song featured 12-year-old Brenda Joyce Evans, Cotten's great-grandchild, and future Undisputed Truth singer.

[citation needed] Using profits from her touring, record releases and awards given to her for her own contributions to the folk arts, Cotten was able to move with her daughter and grandchildren from Washington, D.C., and buy a house in Syracuse, New York.