I first met Miss Libba in 1968 when I was in Washington on the Poor Peoples Campaign. I had come down to D.C. with the NY contingent, but somehow I ended up living with the folks from the Highlander School, Myles Horton and the like. The Georgia Sea Island singers were there also. Pete Seeger and his family showed up. Alan Lomax, Ralph Rinzler, and others would come by, and one night Elizabeth Cotten showed up with dinner, the best fried chicken I have ever had.
A couple of years later I went to D.C. for the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife. I ran into MIss Libba and she invited me and my wife to lunch. She cooked up enough food to serve a battalion!
When I worked at the NY Folklore Center we booked her for a concert. I went up to the train station to meet her train and to help carry her guitar and suitcase down to the store. That night at the concert she was enjoying herself so much on stage (we had to be out of the church by 11), it was almost impossible to get her off stage. I kept giving her the "one more" sign but she encored FREIGHT TRAIN 4 times. It was a treat to hear her. She stayed that night with Rick Altman and his wife Chrissie (Rick had taken over the store after Izzy Young decamped for Sweden). They tried to give her their bed , but she refused and insisted on sleeping on the couch.


Mark Ross