Dickens, Hazel, 1925-2011

Variant names
Dates:
Birth 1925-06-01
Death 2011-04-22
Birth 1935-06-01
Death 2011-04-22
Americans

Biographical notes:

Hazel Jane Dickens (1925*-2011) was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs. Cultural blogger John Pietaro noted that "Dickens didn’t just sing the anthems of labor, she lived them and her place on many a picket line, staring down gunfire and goon squads, embedded her into the cause." The New York Times extolled her as "a clarion-voiced advocate for coal miners and working people and a pioneer among women in bluegrass music." With Alice Gerrard, Dickens was one of the first women to record a bluegrass album.

*Her year of birth is often misreported as 1935, but public records and her family confrim the 1925 date.

Links to collections

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Information

Subjects:

  • Social reformers

Occupations:

  • Singers
  • Folk singers
  • Social Activist
  • Performer

Places:

  • WV, US
  • MD, US
  • DC, US