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The music of Etta Baker first put its hooks in me when I was a hockey-playing, 15-year-old suburban kid in Connecticut. One of my friend’s older brothers had a massive folk music collection. We would mine it for treasures. One day we found a very rare compilation called “Music From the Hills of Caldwell County.” When we put that record on and heard Etta and her sister Cora playing, it was just incredible. Her music seemed so approachable to me. It communicated a sense of community unlike anything I’d ever heard.

But after a few recordings, Etta went unheard. The Newport Folk Festival invited her to play in 1958, but her husband declined on her behalf, saying her place was in the home. So throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Etta was raising her family and working in a textile mill. She played music only around her home.

Only after her children had grown up and her husband had passed did Etta take her first professional gig in 1982 at the World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. That marked the beginning of her career. And it wasn’t until 1991, when she was 78, that Rounder Records released her first full-length album, “One Dime Blues.”

Around the time that album was released, I was living in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and I met the great blues artist Guitar Gabriel. He taught me the language of Piedmont blues. We performed regularly throughout North Carolina. Often, we were on the same bill as Etta. I wound up playing second guitar to Etta throughout the 1990s. I was so fortunate to play all those shows with her. It was a great honor.

In 1998, Cello Recordings gave me funding to record Southern musicians. The first record I brought them was a recording I made in Etta’s home. We called the record “Railroad Bill.” It proved to the world that Etta remained a fountain of glorious music. That recording cemented our professional relationship. From then until her death, I managed her career and recorded and released five more records with Etta Baker — the same woman whose music had inspired me when I was only 15.

— Tim Duffy

Click here to buy a copy of Etta’s “Railroad Bill” album on vinyl, with an included digital download code.