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Hazel Dickens

Hazel Jane Dickens (June 1, 1925[a] – April 22, 2011) was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs. Cultural blogger John Pietaro noted that "Dickens didn’t just sing the anthems of labor, she lived them and her place on many a picket line, staring down gunfire and goon squads, embedded her into the cause." The New York Times extolled her as "a clarion-voiced advocate for coal miners and working people and a pioneer among women in bluegrass music." With Alice Gerrard, Dickens was one of the first women to record a bluegrass album. She was posthumously inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame alongside Gerrard in 2017.[1]

Dickens was known for her activism on behalf of non-unionized mineworkers

Career

Hazel Dickens was born in Montcalm, West Virginia, on June 1, 1925, the eighth of eleven siblings in a mining family of 6 boys and 5 girls. Many of Hazel's relatives were miners, including her brothers, cousins, and, eventually, her brothers-in-law. Her father worked as a minister at a Primitive Baptist church and played the banjo.[2][3][4]

After Hazel's oldest sister moved to Baltimore in the 1940s, Hazel and her parents decided to follow suit. They arrived in Baltimore in the 1950s at different times—Hazel earlier—where she got a job working in a factory.[3][5] She met Mike Seeger, younger half-brother of Pete Seeger and founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, through her brother Robert, who had met him at a TB (Tuberculosis) hospital where Seeger was working at the time. Dickens and Seeger became active in the Baltimore-Washington area bluegrass and folk music scene during the 1960s, playing in living rooms and later on in bars with Bob Baker's bluegrass band as the area's folk movement began to gain traction. The group played a mixture of traditional tunes Hazel had learned over the course of her childhood in Mercer County as well as contemporary bluegrass music popularized by groups such as The Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, and Bill Monroe. Dickens and Seeger left Baker's group around 1958.[5]

During this time she also established a collaborative relationship with Alice Gerrard, who married Mike Seeger in 1970, and as "Hazel & Alice" recorded two albums for the Folkways label:[6] Who's That Knocking (And Other Bluegrass Country Music) (1965) and Won't You Come & Sing for Me (1973). Dickens and Gerrard were bluegrass bandleaders at a time when the vast majority of bluegrass bands were led by men. Together, they recorded two additional albums on Rounder Records, but Hazel & Alice broke up in 1976 and Dickens pursued a solo career where her music and songwriting became more political.[3]

Dickens used her music to try and make a difference in the lives of non-unionized mine workers and feminists.[7] Dickens started to write more about the lives of miners and wrote a song titled "Black Lung" about her brother, Thurman, who died from the disease.[8] She wrote a song titled "Coal Mining Women" about the hardships women faced in the coal mining world.[8] In 1978, Dickens performed at the Vandalia Gathering in Charleston, West Virginia, both solo and then with the former coal-miner turned musician, Carl Rutherford.[9] Dickens began to be seen as an activist and a voice for the working people.[10]

She appeared in the Oscar-winning documentary Harlan County, USA, which centers on the struggle of the county's miners union against scab workers, wage rights, and health conditions; she contributed four songs to the film's soundtrack.[11][12] She also appeared in the films Matewan and Songcatcher.

Death

Grave in Princeton, West Virginia

In 2011, Dickens died in a Washington, D.C. hospice from complications of pneumonia.[13][14] She was buried in Princeton, West Virginia at Roselawn Memorial Gardens.[15] After her death, it was incorrectly reported in major media that she had been born on June 1, 1935, but her relatives and public records confirmed the earlier date of June 1, 1925.[16][17]

Stating that "music saves mountains", fans and supporters of Dickens's activism announced a special memorial, Tribute to West Virginia Music Legend Hazel Dickens at the Charleston, West Virginia, Cultural Center on June 5, 2011.[18]

Discography

Singles and EPs

Solo albums

With Alice Gerrard

With Carol Elizabeth Jones, Ginny Hawker

Other recordings

Films

Films in which Dickens appears

Films in which Dickens contributes to the soundtrack

Other

Her name appears in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song "Hot Topic."[21]

Awards and honors

Dickens received the Merit Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 1994 and was the first woman to do so. In 2001 she was presented with a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.[22][3]

Notes

a. ^ Sources vary on birth date; see talk page discussion

References

  1. ^ "The 2017 IBMA Award Winners". The Bluegrass Situation. September 29, 2017. Retrieved February 24, 2024.
  2. ^ Dickens, Hazel; Malone, Bill C. (2008). "Hazel Dickens: A Brief Biography". Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens. University of Illinois Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-252-07549-0.
  3. ^ a b c d Friskics-Warren, Bill (April 22, 2011). "Hazel Dickens, Folk Singer, Dies at 75". The New York Times. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  4. ^ Yurchenco, Henrietta (1991). "Trouble in the Mines: A History in Song and Story by Women of Appalachia". American Music. 9 (2): 209–224. doi:10.2307/3051817. ISSN 0734-4392. JSTOR 3051817.
  5. ^ a b STRAW, RICHARD; Seeger, Mike; Dickens, Hazel (1986). "Mike Seeger and Hazel Dickens". Appalachian Journal. 13 (4): 410–424. ISSN 0090-3779. JSTOR 40932920.
  6. ^ "Remembering Hazel Dickens". Smithsonian Folkways Magazine (Spring 2011). Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  7. ^ "Remembering Hazel Dickens: A Feminist Bluegrass Voice". NPR.org. Retrieved June 9, 2019.
  8. ^ a b Lee, Hiram (May 9, 2011). "Folksinger Hazel Dickens dies at 75". World Socialist Web Site. Retrieved April 25, 2019.
  9. ^ Lilly, John (March 5, 1999). Mountains of Music: West Virginia Traditional Music from Goldenseal. University of Illinois Press. pp. 165–170. ISBN 9780252068157. Retrieved March 5, 2019 – via Google Books.
  10. ^ Hudson, Michael (November 26, 2002). "Hazel Dickens Inspires New Generation of Musicians". Women's e-News. Retrieved April 25, 2019.
  11. ^ "Harlan County, USA | Big Sky Documentary Film Festival". www.bigskyfilmfest.org. Retrieved June 9, 2019.
  12. ^ "Harlan County USA". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved June 9, 2019.
  13. ^ Thursby, Keith (April 30, 2011). "Hazel Dickens dies at 75; bluegrass pioneer and social activist". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  14. ^ Staff (April 25, 2011). "Bluegrass Singer Hazel Dickens Dies". CMT. Archived from the original on August 1, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  15. ^ Archer, Bill (April 24, 2011). "Bluegrass music world laments the passing of Hazel Dickens". Bluefield Daily Telegraph. Retrieved April 30, 2024.
  16. ^ "Final Notes, Hazel Dickens". Oldtimeherald.org. Archived from the original on November 8, 2016. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  17. ^ "Dickens, Hazel, 1925-2011". Id.loc.gov. Library of Congress. May 10, 2016. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  18. ^ "In Memoriam - Hazel Jane Dickens". Joomag.com. August 2011. p. 22. Retrieved May 19, 2015.
  19. ^ "Strange Creek Singers: Get Aquatinted Waltz - Strange Creek Singers - Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
  20. ^ "Appalshop". Archived from the original on June 15, 2018. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
  21. ^ Oler, Tammy (October 31, 2019). "57 Champions of Queer Feminism, All Name-Dropped in One Impossibly Catchy Song". Slate Magazine.
  22. ^ "NEA National Heritage Fellowships 2001". Arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. Archived from the original on August 1, 2020. Retrieved December 31, 2020.

Further reading

External links