Isn't Libba Cotton ("Freight Train," "Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie") definitively Piedmont?

When I visited Bobert a few months back and we were able to swap a few songs, I played a Mississippi John Hurt song ("Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me"), and he said "Oh, you play that Piedmont style." Now, John Hurt was not from the Piedmont (which is the foothills of the Appalachins), but his music is not at all typical of Mississippi but rather shares many characteritics with Ms Cotton's playing: fingerpicking featuring a steady alternating bass underpinning a melody line.

I endorse Stephan Grossman's instructional meterials pretty strongly myself. I learned much of what I know about guitar playing from his books, back in the old days before videos or even casette tapes. Of course, it's a mistake to try starting out with his most difficult lessons. Before you tackle that Blind Blake and Gary Davis ragtime stuff, work on "Freight Train" and/or "My Creole Bell."

This style of playing is "deceptively simple" ~ in other words, it's easy once you know how, but in order to learn you have to break it down and study one measure at a time, and it isn't necessarily easy at first. It takes patience, but the results are worth it.