Country music legend Hazel Dickens dies

[SparrowHawk]

April 22, 2011
Country music legend Hazel Dickens dies
By Kate Long

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Country music legend Hazel Dickens, who grew up in poverty in Mercer County and sang her hard-hitting songs about working people, coal mining and West Virginia all over the world, died in her sleep Thursday night at age 75.

"She was an icon, not just for West Virginians, but for anyone who had a concern for labor and women's issues," said Michael Lipton, founder of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. "She entered bluegrass music when it was a man's world, and she didn't push open doors. She kicked them open and allowed many other women to follow."

"These rugged mountains and these coal-dusty mining towns and lonesome hollers have shaped my life," she said during her induction in 2007. "They shaped my music for all time."

Her songs were recorded by Dolly Parton, Kathy Mattea, Johnny Cash and scores of other musicians. Her song "West Virginia, Oh My Home" has become an unofficial West Virginia anthem, and "Mama's Hand" was an International Bluegrass Music Association song of the year. Her deep understanding of working women showed in songs like "Working Girl Blues" and "Don't Put Her Down, You Helped Put Her There."

Dickens' songs like "Black Lung," "They'll Never Keep Us Down" and "The Farmington Mine Disaster" chronicled West Virginia's coal mining history and were featured in the films "Matewan" and "Harlan County USA."

"Hazel was a real inspiration to coal miners everywhere," United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts said Friday. "She was a strong, clear voice when we needed one and was never at a loss for words when it came to describing the hard lives miners and their families endured." Dickens frequently sang on picket lines and at benefit concerts to raise money for miners on strike, Roberts recalled. "She was a sister to us all."

I had the opportunity to meet and even have dinner with this remarkable woman. While her politics and mine didn't always mesh, the one thing that transcended the differences was her unbridled passion for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. She played many a benefit for striking miners and their families as well as benefits for those who were injured or killed. It was often hard to tell the singer from the song with her.




Obituary

 

[xUT]

Yes, touches the soul.

 

[SparrowHawk]

Yes, touches the soul.

She was one of 11 Children. Two of her brothers succumbed to Black Lung. She left Montcalm WV, when she was 16, which would have been 1951 with ONE grocery bag of hand me down clothes to Baltimore, MD. There she met up with others from Appalachia and began to sing and ultimately write songs.

She made her living in the factories of the time, one place she worked was the Black & Decker plant. She became politicized during that time as well. One of the stories that went around was back in WV she spent an entire winter in the house because her family couldn't afford a Winter coat for her. I had the opportunity to ask her personally if it was true and she said "YES".

She lived the words in her songs, every last one of them. The strident voice of mine here is a direct result of meeting Hazel. She wasn't much to look at stature wise, but when stepped up to the microphone to sing or speak she was a GIANT. No polish, No filters, just raw emotion and she could just rip your skin off with songs like "Black Lung" & "Never keep us down" Fly Away Little Pretty Bird