Customer Reviews

It's Hard to Tell the Singer From the Song

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WE ARE LUCKY to have an artist like Hazel. Her great range and style exemplifys classic Bluegrass music tradition. Her tight harmony with her backup singers is outstanding. The band is traditional bluegrass and the musicians are excellent. Hazel carries on where the Carter family left off and exposes music lovers to a great art form, i.e. traditional bluegrass music.

With this CD, Hazel Dickens continues to write and sing songs that give voice to the aching heart that won't be beaten down. I can't think of any other performer who quite expresses that feeling of having reached the depths of despair, but then finding an inner strength that gives one hope enough to carry on. This quality perfectly befits songs of the Scottish-Irish, Appalachian, bluegrass, folk/country vein. It's a hard-hearted person who doesn't get choked up listening to the song Hills of Home. I like her own songs best on this selection, but her taste in other writers is always impeccable -- Ruby Kitchen's Here Today, Gone Tomorrow stands out, as well as Bob Dylan's early Only a Hobo. As usual with Dickens' albums, the accompanying musicians here are excellent. A must-have for any Hazel fan, and a good introduction for the uninitiated.

Recently I have been "running the table" on the mountain music genre. From the pioneer work of the venerable Carter Family through to Ralph Stanley and on to the `revival' brought forth in the early part of this decade by such movies as "Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Songcatcher" I have paid more than passing tribute to this quintessential American musical form, complete with fiddle, mandolin and lonely Saturday nights out in the hills and hollows of Appalachia and other rural environs. I have, thus, pretty much exhausted the milieu, right? Wrong. No homage to the modern mountain music scene can be complete with out paying tribute to the work of singer/songwriter Hazel Dickens (and at times musical companion Alice Gerrard, among others).

There was time when, if one was given a choice, the name Hazel Dickens would be the first to come up when naming the most well known voice of the modern mountain music tradition. Her voice spoke of the hardships of the rural life, the trials and tribulations of trying to eke out an existence on some hard scrabble rocky farmland or, more likely, in the coals mines or textiles factories that dominated that landscape for much of the second half of the 20th century. That was the pure, almost primordial voice that spoke of the sorrows of hill life, but also the joys of coming to terms with a very personal (and, apparently) angry god by way of singing away those working women blues, and you can add in a few tunes for those hard-bitten farmers and coals miners as well.

So, needless to say, this little Rounder CD from 1987 is filled with original work and covers on just those subjects mentioned above. From a cover of Bob Dylan's "Only A Hobo" to the classic "Hills Of Home" and on to the necessary religious- themed "Will Jesus Wash The Bloodstains From Your Hands" this is what mountain music is like when it is done right. Listen and see if you agree.

from a lover of old time gospel bluegrass and country this is definately one of the best stained glass bluegrass cd's out there.

enjoyed it very much need a list of songs for each album of hazel dickens--hazel dickens& alice gerrard with a price list for each Email if you want to Thank You H.A.