I’ve Endured: Women in Old-Time Music

Close-Up on Women in Old-Time Music

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Hazel Dickens

Woman in a white bouse and floral skirt sits with her arms crossed looking pensive against a black background.
Image from the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection, 1965—1989, #20004, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Hometown

Montcalm, West Virginia

Date of Birth

June 1, 1925

Date of Death

April 22, 2011

Hazel Dickens was the eighth of eleven children who grew up in a coal-mining, hard-working, impoverished family that drew comfort from religion and mountain music. Following World War II, she moved to Baltimore.  Hazel found an audience and her identity as a female musical artist in this early 1950s community of bluegrass, country, and folk artists. She had a definite musical creativity to bring to the new social activism, a voice not only from her own experiences but influenced by like-minded artists such as Mike Seeger and Ola Belle Reed and social activists Alyse Taubman, Bernice Reagon, and Anne Romaine. Here also Hazel met Alice Gerrard and they began performing bluegrass music together, mostly at house parties. Their first public performance was at the 1962 Galax Fiddler’s Convention. Peter Siegel with Folkway Records heard them and recorded their first LP, “Who’s That Knocking,” in 1965.  This album broke long-time male dominance in bluegrass.  

Hazel and Alice were the first women to front a bluegrass band, breaking new ground for women performing in the genre.  Together, Hazel and Alice produced four albums before returning to solo performances.  However, the enormous impact of their combined talents continues to be recognized and appreciated today.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Hazel performed at festivals and protest rallies while recording albums.  Her vocals on the soundtrack of the documentary “Harlan County, USA” introduced her to a wider audience.  This documentary was the debut of her iconic song “Black Lung,” along with “Mannington Mine Disaster,” “Yablonski Murders,” and “They’ll Never Keep Us Down.”  Hazel lived quietly in D.C., directing her own professional and personal life.  Hazel’s appearances were as diverse as fifteen Smithsonian Festivals of American Folklife, other festivals and protests/benefits for the coal miners and the downtrodden, Carnegie Hall, and college classrooms.  She is quoted as saying, “If I have a religion, that’s it:  to take what I have and be able to share it with somebody that needs it.”  Hazel is considered one of the most widely enjoyed country singers, both nationally and internationally.

Take a Listen

Select Discography

  • Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People (Rounder Records)
  • By The Sweat of My Brow (Rounder Records)
  • It’s Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song (Rounder Records)
  • Who’s That Knocking – Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard (Vevue Folkway)
  • Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard (Rounder Records)
  • Hazel and Alice (Rounder Records)
  • Won’t You Come and Sing for Me – Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard (Folkways Records)
  • Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard – Singing My Way Back home:  The D.C. Tapes 1965-1969 (Free Dort Records)

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Hazel Dickens

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