Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens

Hazel Dickens: A Brief Biography by Bill C. Malone

Hazel Dickens A Brief Biography Bill C. Malone s Hazel Dickens’s compelling voice and eloquent songs first reached a large American public in the soundtrack of Harlan County, USA, a 1976 Academy Award–winning documentary film that told of a protracted and dramatic strike in the eastern Kentucky coalfields. During a graphic description of theravageswroughtbypneumoconiosismidwaythroughthedocumentary, Hazel is heard singing her own composition, “Black Lung,” a powerful elegy inspired by the death of her brother Thurman and other coal miners. Her voice—stark, keening, and persuasive—manages to convey both the suffering felt by generations of her kinsmen and her own outrage at the greed and neglect that produced such misery. There is no mistaking the sound we hear. It is not a pathetic wail, nor a dejected cry of despair. It is an angry call for justice. Hazel Dickens’s voice and vocal style are qualities that old-time music fanshaverecognizedsincethemid-1960s,whenshejoinedwithAliceGerrardtobreaknewgroundforwomeninthefieldofbluegrass ,adomainthat had been notorious for its dominance by “good old boys.” Hazel and Alice truly were “pioneering women,”1 with passionate duets and searing songs thatinspiredwomentoinvadethismasculineprovince.TheirseminalduetsmarkedthebeginningofwhatmusichistorianandpromoterArtMenius 2 / Working Girl Blues approvingly described as “the feminization of bluegrass.”2 Hazel’s career with Alice, though, was only the most recent phase of an almost lifetime of immersion in music. She shaped and honed her style in the rough clubs and honky-tonks of Baltimore and, before that, in the music she heard at home and in the Primitive Baptist churches of West Virginia. HazelJaneDickenswasborninMontcalm,MercerCounty,WestVirginia, onJune1,1935,theeighthofelevenchildren(sixboysandfivegirls)inthe family of Hillary N. and Sarah Aldora Dickens. Mercer County lies at the southern extremity of the state, right on the border with Virginia, and not too far northeast of the storied coal seams of Harlan County, Kentucky, where Florence Reece first raised the question that always confronts us when we witness the victimization of the poor or working class: “Which Side Are You On?” Mercer County embodies the paradox of Appalachian coal country. While it is a land of stark natural beauty and abundant resources , the lives of its people have too often been sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed. Its beautiful hills and valleys once held massive deposits of bituminous coal, providing jobs for struggling farmers and immense wealth for a few entrepreneurs. The county’s population, though, has declined steadily since the late 1950s, when mechanization and strip mining reduced the need for labor in the mines. According to family lore, the Dickens clan is related to the famous British novelist, Charles Dickens. Such an association seems fitting. Both Hazel and her distant British kinsman have had compassionate concerns for the poor and fine critical eyes for the details of working-class life. Unlike the perspective of the great English writer, who knew the downtrodden largely as a sympathetic outsider, Hazel’s awareness comes from wholly within that culture, as a sensitive and discerning child of the poor. Her father, Hillary (generally known as H. N.), cut and sold timber for mine roofing, and her brothers, brothers-in-law, and cousins worked in the mines.Shegrewupseeingherbrothersmarchofftothemineseachmorningandreturnintheeveningwiththeirfacesandclothescoveredwithcoal dust.Wellbeforesheleftthehillsofhome,Hazelhadlearnedanevenmore searing truth: that the coal dust had also seeped into their lungs. Hardworking men like her father and brothers were exploited for their labor but were undervalued as human beings. Except when they exercised theirrightsatthepollsorwalkedofftheirjobstodemandbettertreatment A Brief Biography / 3 fromtheirbosses,theyhadlittlevoiceinsociety.H.N.wasabletoexercise his authority outside of the workplace in two areas where working-class mencoulddominate:homeandpulpit.Athome,hewasastern,unyielding husband and father who asserted total and unquestioned command over hishousehold.InthePrimitiveBaptistchurch,hewasaneloquentpreacher andastrongsinger,andhiscongregationvaluedhisleadership.Duringthe brief moments of his sermon, no one could question his authority or his worth. Mother Sarah was quiet, submissive, and almost always deferential to her husband. She devoted her life to all of her eleven children, but was particularlyclosetoherfrailandsicklydaughterHazel.Hazeldescribesthe incident that epitomized and strengthened that relationship in her commentsaboutheraward -winningsong,“Mama’sHand.”Fearingforthelife of her three-month-old daughter, who would not take her mother’s milk, Sarah bundled Hazel up, carried her across the mountain to the railhead, and successfully sought out the aid of a doctor in a nearby town. The close bond that developed between mother and daughter is memorialized not only in the song written by Hazel, but also in another one inspired by the incident called “Carry Me across the Mountain.”3 The Dickens family sought, found, and affirmed its identity through religionandmusic .Hazelinsiststhatsheisnotveryreligious,andhasinfact written and...