Hazel Dickens & Phyllis Boyens - "West Virginia, My Home" [Live at Folklife Festival 1978]
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- Опубликовано: 26 авг 2024
- Born in West Virginia, Hazel Dickens recorded twice for Folkways Records and was a frequent participant of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, appearing some fifteen times. In this rare video from 1978, she sings "West Virginia, My Home," one of her most treasured songs. Her friend, the late Phyllis Boyens, adds harmony.
'Pioneering Women of Bluegrass' by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard is available on CD and digital.
Stream/download/purchase:
Smithsonian Folkways: folkways.si.ed...
Spotify: open.spotify.c...
On April 22, 2011, our dear friend Hazel Dickens passed away at the age of 75. Hazel was one of the most important bluegrass singers of the last fifty years and the writer of very poignant songs drawn from her personal experience. Her ties to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Folkways, and the Festival family were long-standing and very close.
Hazel Dickens became an accomplished bluegrass performer at a time when the genre was dominated by men. She was also an admired advocate for women's and worker's rights. Along with fellow musician and friend Alice Gerrard, she empowered countless female singers and musicians to succeed without sacrificing integrity. In this performance, Dickens, herself the eighth of eleven children born to a West Virginia mining family, pays homage to her home state.
To read a full appreciation of Hazel Dickens from Smithsonian Folkways Magazine:
folkways.si.ed...
Smithsonian Folkways: folkways.si.edu
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What you see on this video - its the real deal. Nothing fake, nothing phoney. These lyrics and the amazing voice of Hazel Dickens have been in my mind for more than 35 years. I am delighted to have found this posting - thank you
Phyllis Boyens, the lady singing with Hazel is a wonderful singer.. She played Loretta Lynn's mother in Coal Miners Daughter.
She was my Mother's best friend and her daughter my best friend growing up. I will always miss her and I am thankful that I knew her. She made a huge influence on my life where music is concerned.
I’m a Dickens from West Virginia. That’s the kind of singing with that thick accent I grew up hearing in church.
OMG! I love youtube! I was there! met her and Alice Gerrard and Mike Seeger. What a day to remember!
Guess I've heard Hazel sing that a dozen times and not once sung it the same. That's good mountain music, always fitting in a bit different depending on the crowd and the setting. The music just keeps on a living its own life.
What a treat comingbacross this. Thank you for posting.
Thanks for posting this video. To be honest, I'd never heard of Hazel Dickens until recently, but as I live in the anthracite mining area of Northeast Pennsylvania, I can relate to Hazel and her music. May she rest in peace, a kindred soul.
This song resonates so strongly with me, especially now that I live in a city far from West Virginia.
This is awesome
Hallowed be her name. I am very glad I got to tell her personally how much her song means to me..
Thanks for posting.
I was there that year! It was a wonderful festival. I don't know if I heard this lady, but I was at the West Virginia exhibit a lot, so probably did. Love this recording.
So very very great.
My favorite female artist, bar none!
THIS IS AMERICA!!!!
Love Hazel.
von Smithsonian Folkways
bisher noch die beste Aufnahme des Originals
I can't believe there's four haters that would "Thumbs down" this...
Who is like "you know what I need to do today? dislike a Hazel Dickens song on RUclips."
Just ignore them. They’ll always be in our midst.
thankyou for posting!!!!
..tearfully honest..
BLAIR MOUNTAIN,HAZEL DICKENS, CONCERT,CHARLESTON WV, 2011
The fiddler here, if I'm not mistaken, is the esteemed CARL NELSON.
Sure is. He was a great fiddler, and a supremely nice guy, too.
Thanks Doug, I was wondering!
I think this is just great. Is this the earliest video recording of Hazel Dickens? I just love it.
Just a possible correction as to her age.. according to what I find, she was born in 1925. If she died in 2011 that would make her 85 not 75. I heard a recording made in 2008 and the way she sounded her age at that time would be in the low 80's... I have heard almost no one in their 80's sound as good as they did in their 40's and 50's... She sounds great in this video in her 50's in 1978. It's a shame this song wasn't more popular in Ne Pa. which was heavily mined in years gone by.. just think of Centralia.. I've only heard it a few times and that was at old time Bluegrass festivals, and almost never on stage.
"Working girl blues - the life and music of Hazel Dickens" by Hazel Dickens & Bill C Malone, pub. University of Illinois Press, 2008, p2 states d.o.b. "June 1, 1935" and p5 "By the time she left home in 1954 ..." at age 19 or 29?
Dickens doesn't strike me as a person vain enough to drop her age a decade. I think I'll just enjoy her voice and ideas.
Update: her grave plaque reads "1925-2011"
Market
Marker from mama's
Bible play
With all those microphones, it looks like someone was recording this show. Why is the sound on this video so awful and distorted? C'mon smithsonian! Find a better audio recording to go with this video!
Back then, it was a lot easier to saturate the input, especially with a strong voice like Hazel had. Just a few years earlier, Eddie Adcock's banjo knocked the whole system offline when he kicked off "Matterhorn" (Yellow Springs, Ohio)
@@SteelguitarLane ha! Well there were limitations, but I still have to wonder if there isn’t a decent recording that could be used of this performance.
I suspect the Smithsonian only had access to the feed off the board, and the other mics were other individuals (at a time when rights weren't as jealously guarded as now).
My guess: in the sound check, she held back a bit, and let fly once she got warmed up. That's clearly a saturated input, and Hazel definitely could belt: she almost sounds like a shape note singer at times. (I've got a picture somewhere of her, Russ Hooper and Bill Monroe in my dad's basement)
I think they try to make it sound "older." This is 1978! They also go with the black and white film to make it look older. You can't trust the government with anything.
West Virginia seems like Hades.