Biography
Hazel Dickens, a protest and folk singer, came of age as the eighth of eleven siblings in an impoverished mining household in West Virginia, channeling country and bluegrass idioms to illuminate the hardships of non-unionized mineworkers and a brand of feminism grounded in longstanding customs rather than the upheavals of the 1960s. She entered the world on June 1, 1935, in Mercer County, West Virginia, absorbing her initial musical exposure from her father, a Baptist minister and occasional banjo player who hauled freight for a mining company. Country traditionalists such as Uncle Dave Macon, the Monroe Brothers, and the Carter Family left a lasting imprint on her approach.
Dire family circumstances prompted her move to Baltimore at age 19, where she joined her sister and two brothers in factory work. The four siblings regularly visited old-time festivals and gatherings, both as spectators and as participants. At one such event Dickens encountered Mike Seeger, younger brother of folk legend Pete Seeger, and the pair assembled a band that featured her brothers as well.
Over the next decade she became a fixture in the folk and bluegrass circles of the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., region, supplying bass and lead vocals to several ensembles, among them the Greenbriar Boys during their 1960s tours alongside Joan Baez. Around the same period she formed a creative alliance with Alice Gerrard, Mike Seeger’s wife and a classically trained vocalist drawn to old-time repertoire. The two researched early feminist songs at the Library of Congress and added them to their own performances.
They appeared across the United States, with particular frequency in the South, and cut two albums for Folkways: Who’s That Knocking (And Other Bluegrass Country Music) in 1965 and Won’t You Come & Sing for Me in 1973. The partnership dissolved in 1973, after which later compilations drew on archival material, and Dickens embarked on a solo trajectory. She furnished four songs for the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning coal-mining documentary Harlan County, USA.
Three years afterward she contributed to the score of With Babies and Banners and launched her solo recording career five years after that. Her three Rounder albums—Hard Hitting Songs for the Hard Hit (1981), By the Sweat of My Brow (1983), and It’s Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song (1987)—mix old-time country selections with protest material and more contemporary country numbers. Rounder later issued A Few Old Memories, a distillation of highlights from those three releases.
The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed a National Heritage Award upon her in 2008. Widely acknowledged as a trailblazer in bluegrass and women’s music alike, Hazel Dickens died at age 75 in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 2011, from complications of pneumonia.
Dire family circumstances prompted her move to Baltimore at age 19, where she joined her sister and two brothers in factory work. The four siblings regularly visited old-time festivals and gatherings, both as spectators and as participants. At one such event Dickens encountered Mike Seeger, younger brother of folk legend Pete Seeger, and the pair assembled a band that featured her brothers as well.
Over the next decade she became a fixture in the folk and bluegrass circles of the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., region, supplying bass and lead vocals to several ensembles, among them the Greenbriar Boys during their 1960s tours alongside Joan Baez. Around the same period she formed a creative alliance with Alice Gerrard, Mike Seeger’s wife and a classically trained vocalist drawn to old-time repertoire. The two researched early feminist songs at the Library of Congress and added them to their own performances.
They appeared across the United States, with particular frequency in the South, and cut two albums for Folkways: Who’s That Knocking (And Other Bluegrass Country Music) in 1965 and Won’t You Come & Sing for Me in 1973. The partnership dissolved in 1973, after which later compilations drew on archival material, and Dickens embarked on a solo trajectory. She furnished four songs for the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning coal-mining documentary Harlan County, USA.
Three years afterward she contributed to the score of With Babies and Banners and launched her solo recording career five years after that. Her three Rounder albums—Hard Hitting Songs for the Hard Hit (1981), By the Sweat of My Brow (1983), and It’s Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song (1987)—mix old-time country selections with protest material and more contemporary country numbers. Rounder later issued A Few Old Memories, a distillation of highlights from those three releases.
The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed a National Heritage Award upon her in 2008. Widely acknowledged as a trailblazer in bluegrass and women’s music alike, Hazel Dickens died at age 75 in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 2011, from complications of pneumonia.
Albums
