Hazel Dickens: We Only Saw Her Sing One Song Live But Oh How We Tried

By the first time that I heard Hazel Dickens sing she as well into her solo career, and I immediately recognized that she was something very special – that was hard to miss.  As it turned out, her career lasted for over forty years before Hazel died from pneumonia complications in 2011.  From the beginning, I had to know more about Hazel and that, of course, led me to her wonderful groundbreaking recordings with Alice Gerrard with whom she recorded as Hazel and Alice. 

Hazel and Alice did something in bluegrass that no other women had dared try: they were the lead singers, not back-up singers to male bluegrass stars of the day.  Even more remarkable, they used the same tenor and lead vocal arrangements so effectively used by their male contemporaries. The four albums they recorded are still some of the best bluegrass albums I have ever heard and I listen to them regularly.  Hazel moved on to a successful solo career after the women stopped recording and touring together as a duo. 

I was lucky enough to climb on the Hazel Dickens time machine only once - in June 2007 when Hazel performed at the International Bluegrass Music Museum's annual festival in Owensboro, Kentucky (ROMP).  Regular ROMPers were not surprised when a huge thunderstorm began to roll in to Yellow Creek Park that afternoon, complete with spectacular displays of lightning and loud bursts of thunder.  Hazel was in the middle of her second song of the day when festival organizers decided to clear the stage for the safety of the performers; the danger of a lightning strike was just too great to allow the show to go on even though it was still not raining.  But the rain did come, and it came in buckets for more than an hour.  By the time the stage was deemed safe again (at least a two-hour time delay), Hazel (probably for health reasons) had left the park for good.

Hazel was scheduled to appear at ROMP the next year but had to cancel her appearance on her doctor's orders.  She was simply too ill to travel to Kentucky that year, but even though I never had the chance to see her perform again, I will forever treasure the one-and-a-half songs I witnessed that June 2007 afternoon in a secluded little Kentucky public park.

Now, finally, the Bluegrass Hall of Fame (located at the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky) has made Hazel one of its 2017 inductees where her plaque will be unveiled later this year.

I should point out that pretty much all of Hazel’s solo work and her recordings with Alice are still relatively easy to find online.  In addition, she had prominent roles in documentary and film, most often providing songs but sometimes even appearing in some of the films in small roles.

The Hazel Dickens Time Machine: