Born in January 1893, Cotten began working domestically at the age of nine. After leaving school for work and saving a bit of money, by age 12, she purchased her first guitar.
While learning dance and ragtime music, Cotten had begun writing her own—"Freight Train," one of her most widely-recognized songs, was written around this time.
"I've had to play it so much. I wrote that song when I was living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I was ten or eleven and I didn't have a guitar yet.
As a teenager, she married a man named Frank Cotten. She gave up music to raise a family in the church, and did not touch an instrument for over 20 years.
After working for the family—which also included Charles Seeger (father of PeteSeeger), and his and Ruth's children; Mike, Peggy, Barbara and Penelope—for about five years, Cotten began playing the instruments available around the house.
"We recorded her whole album with her on the second floor of her house, with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren all hanging around while we were recording late at night. It was very homey," he said, to the San Diego Reader.
Cotten's first live show was at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania; she later went on to play the major folk festivals, including UCLA, Smithsonian, Philadelphia, Newport, and Chicago.
In 1987, just a few weeks before she died, Cotten played her final show in New York City. She passed away on June 29, at the age of 94.
Cotten was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
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