Hazel Dickens Albums (6)
'It's Hard to Tell the Singer From the Song'
Release Date 7/11/2000
Tracks 11
Label Rounder
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What The Critics Say
It's Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song is a beautiful, emotionally raw album from start to finish. Throughout, Dickens creates a music that's traditional and timeless, while also having her feet firmly planted in the here and now. Traditional country songs like "California Cottonfields" clearly share an affinity for the working person, while Dylan's "Only a Hobo" reveals the sacredness of even the "lowliest" life. Dickens also enjoys singing feminist-tinged songs like "You'll Get No More of Me" and the anti-war anthem "Will Jesus Wash the Bloodstains From Your Hands?" Dickens seems to enjoy updating tradition, drawing from her West Virginia background while adding political touches usually absent from folk and country music. Part of the success of this project is that excellent musicians like Jerry Douglas, Russ Barenberg, and Blaine Sprouse offer tasteful support throughout. Dickens' voice also proves a perfect instrument to communicate the stark lyrics of songs like "Hills of Home." Her delivery has more in common with the Carter Family than contemporary bluegrass and country singing, and her old-time vocals add to the emotional impact of this material. Songs like "Hills of Home" and "A Few Old Memories" deal with the sense of loss that comes from leaving behind familiar places like a childhood home. "Play Us a Waltz" sketches a portrait from inside a nursing home, "where there's no one to love, and nothing to do." The characters that inhabit It's Hard to Tell the Singer From the Song long for a sense of place in the modern world and cry out for compassion and understanding. This is powerful album and a mature artistic statement. ~ Ronnie Lankford, Jr., All Music Guide
'Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard'
Release Date 7/14/1998
Tracks 14
Label Rounder
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What The Critics Say
The second Rounder date by singers and songwriters Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard was issued two years after the first. Dickens and Gerrard's songs are showcased here alongside those of the Louvin Brothers, Jack Sutton, and some early traditional gems. The amazing thing is that these women's songs could have been written in the 19th century as well as earlier in the 20th. Dickens' songs -- such as "Working Girl Blues," "West Virginia My Home," and "Ramblin' Woman" -- come from the hardscrabble coal country where the old mountain music lives on in banjos, mandolins, and guitars. Gerrard is a more traditional country and folk songwriter; her tunes -- such as the gorgeous "Mama's Gonna Stay" and "Mary Johnson" -- are stitched through with pedal steel guitars alongside acoustic guitars that come from the honky tonk tradition. What is remarkable is how natural the pair sounds no matter what they're singing. Dickens' voice is more striking and dramatic, but there is a certain smoky, haunted sensuality in Gerrard's that makes it very distinct. Both are flawless harmony singers. Neither woman takes any sh*t; these are not broken-heart songs in any normal sense. Gerrard's "Mary Johnson" is a feminist anthem about a woman's right to stop for a drink in a bar and not entertain the foul intentions of men: "What you see as want in my eyes in merely the reflection in your own." Dickens' "Ramblin' Woman Blues" states: "Take all that sweet talk and give it to give other girl/Who'd be happy to rock your babies/And live in your kind of world/For I'm a different kind of woman/Got a different set of plans/You know a ramblin' woman's/No good for a home lovin' man." The Louvin Brothers' "When I Loved You" and Jimmie Rodgers' "Mean Papa Blues" are innovative and soulful rearrangements in harmony. But it's Gerrard's slippery, hunted banjo and dulcimer in "Beaufort Jail" that's a clockstopper here. Both Rounder albums by this duo are indispensable for country and bluegrass fans, and perhaps, in retrospect, the latter effort might be the better of the two. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song'
Release Date 10/17/1990
Tracks 11
Label Rounder
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What The Critics Say
Few singers in the last 30 years evoke the essence of bluegrass twang as does Hazel Dickens. And this platter from 1987 is one of her strongest, with a fine band backing her and a superior batch of songs. Listening to weepers like "A Few Old Memories" and "Do Memories Haunt You," it is clear just where a host of recent alt-country artists such as Freakwater and Sally Timms got their inspiration. ~ Tim Sheridan, All Music Guide
'By the Sweat of My Brow'
Release Date 10/17/1990
Tracks 12
Label Rounder
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What The Critics Say
On By the Sweat of My Brow, the "First Lady of Bluegrass" strays from her familiar protest songs and focuses on traditionally themed orphan ballads and tormented love songs, many of which were penned by Dickens herself. Her gruff West Virginia voice stomps its way through the rough-and-tumble "Are They Gonna Make Us Outlaws Again," but still gently croons during the tender "Scars of an Old Love." Although she certainly paved the way for female neo-traditional folk artists like Gillian Welch and Iris Dement, no other artist in the latter half of the 20th century really captured the hardship and struggle of rural coal-town living like Hazel Dickens did in every syllable, and this album represents the high point of an artist at the high point of her career. ~ Zac Johnson, All Music Guide
'Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People'
Release Date 10/17/1990
Tracks 12
Label Rounder
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What The Critics Say
Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People is a very good record that deals with the out-of-work, down-on-his-luck, average American. It features Nancy & Norman Blake, Tony Trischka, Ross Barenberg, James Bryan, Matt Glaser, Barry Mitterhoff, and Buddy Spicher. ~ Chip Renner, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Although Dickens and Gerrard had recorded a couple of albums as a duo in the mid-1960s, those were more traditional-minded bluegrass recordings than this 1973 effort. Several of the songs documented women's experiences in personal terms that struck a chord in many listeners involved in the women's movement, a constituency that the performers were not consciously addressing and somewhat surprised (though pleased) to reach. In fact, about half of this was devoted to traditional numbers by the likes of the Carter Family and Wilma Lee Cooper, but the original numbers brought a still-rare feminist viewpoint to folk and bluegrass music, particularly Dickens' "Don't Put Her Down, You Helped Put Her There." The songs make their points about women's struggles without being doctrinaire; the vocals (both solo and harmony) are impassioned, particularly on the Dickens a cappella showcase "Pretty Bird," and the musicianship appropriately spare. The CD reissue features extensive historical liner notes and track-by-track commentary by country music authority Charles Wolfe. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
