Striking Pittston Miners in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. But Hazel also recognized the plight of women, and
and from those harmonies, she and her daughter Wynonna drew their duet inspiration. Laurie Lewis
she wrote about it in her song “Don’t Put Her Down, You Helped Put Her There.” Women of the early 1970s fighting equality battles in a man’s world flocked to hear Hazel and Alice.
said Hazel Dickens is right in there with Bill Monroe, Carter Stanley, Lester Flatt. “She addresses issues. She’s emotional and sincere.”
Hazel Dickens and her songs inspired many women, especially those in music. Alison Krauss said she loved the hard singing of Hazel Dickens. “She’s a ten,” she said. Naomi Judd said, “this is legitimate stuff, authentic music; it’s what we cut our teeth on.” Before her singing career with Wynonna took off, Naomi bought a Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard album, 32
with the National Endowment for Arts after she became a 2001 NEA National Fellow:
“Be yourself. The hardest thing in the world is realizing that you have to be yourself, and you’ve got to say what’s in your heart and mind instead of trying to emulate somebody else. “It’s Hard to Tell the Singer When I started out, I kept from the Song,” wrote Hazel comparing myself to a lot Dickens. She said she wrote of the writers that I liked. traditional and political I’d tell myself that I could songs to satisfy both sides never write anything like of herself. “I was learning them. But you don’t do it about my own self and overnight. You have to keep what was inside. I had never plugging away at it.” had the opportunity to express myself, and so I didn’t know what was in there.” Hazel’s awards: Hazel left future bluegrass Award of Merit, Internagenerations a piece of adtional Bluegrass Music vice through her interview
