We’ve all got our favourites or styles that we tend to lean towards, Piedmont blues sits for me as do a couple of Piedmont artists such as the Rev Gary Davis, Blind Blake and Sonny Terry. Elizabeth Cotton’s Freight Train is categorised as indeed a Piedmont track and is for me one of the best and easily recognised fingerpicking guitar tunes.

The specific style (also known as East Coast, or South-Eastern blues) refers primarily to a guitar style that may be said to be comparable to the sound of a ragtime piano. How would that sit with you?

The style is characterised by intricate fingerpicking in which the thumb alternates bass strings in a rhythmic pattern the treble strings. The syncopated guitar style connects closely with the traditional earlier string-band tradition that we at PD are so familiar with, integrating ragtime, blues, and country dance songs.

​The style originated in the Piedmont region of the United States, the hilly area which lies between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the Appalachian Mountains from central Georgia to central Virginia.  Played by both white and black musicians, it is a regional folk music that remains to this day.