Dickens, Hazel, 1925-2011

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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.

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Person

Birth 1925-06-01

Death 2011-04-22

Americans

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