Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens (Music in American Life) [Hardcover]

Hazel Dickens (Author), Bill C Malone (Author)

Book Description

Series: Music in American Life | Publication Date: April 2, 2008

Hazel Dickens is an Appalachian singer and songwriter known for her superb musicianship, feminist country songs, union anthems, and blue-collar laments. Growing up in a West Virginia coal mining community, she drew on the mountain music and repertoire of her family and neighbors when establishing her own vibrant and powerful vocal style that is a trademark in old-time, bluegrass, and traditional country circles. Working Girl Blues presents forty original songs that Hazel Dickens wrote about coal mining, labor issues, personal relationships, and her life and family in Appalachia. Conveying sensitivity, determination, and feistiness, Dickens comments on each of her songs, explaining how she came to write them and what they meant and continue to mean to her. Bill C. Malone's introduction traces Dickens's life, musical career, and development as a songwriter, and the book features forty-one illustrations and a detailed discography of her commercial recordings.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Still churning out songs "that challenge the easy complacency and corporate arrogance of our time," influential Appalachian singer-songwriter Hazel Dickens has devoted her life to writing music not just about "the predictable themes of bluegrass-mama, the old home place, the distant but cherished past," but "questions of estrangement, survival, human dignity, and social and economic justice that concern us all." This slim biography, which includes many black and white photographs, lyrics and personal notes from Dickens, as well as a complete discography, chronicles her personal and professional life. Malone, an author and Tulane University history professor, illuminates the life of a "sensitive and discerning child of the poor" who overcame "a society that discouraged women from expressing themselves," and, over the decades, ended up speaking out for many. Dickens's stories, accompanying her song lyrics, provide additional insight into her heritage ( "Coal Miner's Grave," "West Virginia My Home"), personal experience and eccentric voice: "Scraps from Your Table," she says, is "one of those nasty smart-alecky songs that I like to write." This tribute to Dickens's life and work will interest bluegrass fans and activists.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Booklist

Hard on the heels of Foster Hirsch’s Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King (2007) comes this somewhat complementary book. Fujiwara skims over Preminger’s early years directing for the Vienna stage and his later acting in movies (most memorably, Stalag 17) to emphasize his film direction, noting such stylistic markers as his fluid camera movements and long takes and drawing thematic connections between his early films and those shot three decades later. Fujiwara requisitely praises Laura and Preminger’s other lauded 1940s noirs, and the censor-defying The Moon Is Blue and The Man with the Golden Arm, but proceeds to be the contrarian about the large-scale early-1960s films, such as Exodus and Advise and Consent, that are commonly dismissed as bloated and inert. Fujiwara considers them radical and original, integral to Preminger’s self-definition as a filmmaker. A recent upswing in Preminger’s critical reputation justifies Hirsch’s and Fujiwara’s efforts, and libraries with strong film collections should consider both. Others will choose Hirsch for his emphasis on Preminger’s colorful life or Fujiwara for his informed and astute critique. --Gordon Flagg

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (April 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252033043
• ISBN-13: 978-0252033049
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,867,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Working Girl Blues, June 7, 2009

By 

Daniel L. Christopher (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens (Music in American Life) (Paperback)

This brief work is a helpful start, and readers should understand that it is a popular level work rather than the serious analysis and historical work that Hazel's life, tradition, and music really deserve. But until that appears, this is a good start. In fact, such short works done quickly, while memories are fresh, can be VERY helpful for later, more serious, academic works. There is a short biography, followed by the lyrics of many of Hazel's songs with brief comments from Hazel herself. The book reads like an extended series of conversations with Hazel Dickens herself. I enjoyed reading it, but was left wanting more background, analysis, and comparisons with other musicians similar to her, either historical or contemporary. I was especially interested in learning about Mountain Gospel music, but this work is very minimal on this subject. But all in all - a Good start.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book telling the story of a bluegrass icon, November 22, 2008

By 

Suzan Syrett (Menlo Park, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens (Music in American Life) (Paperback)

After attending a bluegrass festival, I realized that although I knew nothing about Hazel Dickens, other performers at the festival had great respect for her. After reading this book, I knew why. She started life very poor, shy, and very self-conscious about her lack of formal education. She did, however, live in a family that valued country and hill music. Through hard work, a little luck and taking advantage of any help offered, she became a musician in the Appalachian hill style, singing songs she wrote about current injustices as well as old standards. She gained the courage to speak out for oppressed coal miners, the homeless, child laborers, women in abusive relationships, and other downtrodden people. As one of the first women in the previously male-dominated field of bluegrass, she became a feminist before she knew what the word meant. She has worked hard and lived frugally by choice. This book is especially valuable because it contains lyrics to all the songs Hazel has written along with notes about why she wrote them.