Hazel Dickens - Hazel Dickens And Alice Gerrard '1975

Tracks list

       The second Rounder date by singers and songwriters Hazel Dickens and
Alice Gerrard was issued two years after the first. Dickens and Gerrard's songs
are showcased here alongside those of the Louvin Brothers, Jack Sutton, and some
early traditional gems. The amazing thing is that these women's songs could have
been written in the 19th century as well as earlier in the 20th. Dickens' songs
-- such as "Working Girl Blues," "West Virginia My Home," and "Ramblin' Woman"
-- come from the hardscrabble coal country where the old mountain music lives on
in banjos, mandolins, and guitars. Gerrard is a more traditional country and
folk songwriter; her tunes -- such as the gorgeous "Mama's Gonna Stay" and "Mary
Johnson" -- are stitched through with pedal steel guitars alongside acoustic
guitars that come from the honky tonk tradition. What is remarkable is how
natural the pair sounds no matter what they're singing. Dickens' voice is more
striking and dramatic, but there is a certain smoky, haunted sensuality in
Gerrard's that makes it very distinct. Both are flawless harmony singers.
Neither woman takes any sh*t; these are not broken-heart songs in any normal
sense. Gerrard's "Mary Johnson" is a feminist anthem about a woman's right to
stop for a drink in a bar and not entertain the foul intentions of men: "What
you see as want in my eyes in merely the reflection in your own." Dickens'
"Ramblin' Woman Blues" states: "Take all that sweet talk and give it to give
other girl/Who'd be happy to rock your babies/And live in your kind of world/For
I'm a different kind of woman/Got a different set of plans/You know a ramblin'
woman's/No good for a home lovin' man." The Louvin Brothers' "When I Loved You"
and Jimmie Rodgers' "Mean Papa Blues" are innovative and soulful rearrangements
in harmony. But it's Gerrard's slippery, hunted banjo and dulcimer in "Beaufort
Jail" that's a clockstopper here. Both Rounder albums by this duo are
indispensable for country and bluegrass fans, and perhaps, in retrospect, the
latter effort might be the better of the two.

Tracklist:
1 01. Hazel Dickens - Let That Liar Alone (03:33)
1 02. Hazel Dickens - When I Loved You (03:43)
1 03. Hazel Dickens - Working Girl Blues (03:21)
1 04. Hazel Dickens - West Virginia My Home (03:38)
1 05. Hazel Dickens - Mama's Gonna Stay (02:49)
1 06. Hazel Dickens - Montana Cowboy (02:19)
1 07. Hazel Dickens - Mean Papa Blues (03:08)
1 08. Hazel Dickens - Nice Like That (02:41)
1 09. Hazel Dickens - Mary Johnson (03:09)
1 10. Hazel Dickens - Ramblin' Woman (03:08)
1 11. Alice Gerrard - Beaufort County Jail (03:02)
1 12. Hazel Dickens - Banjo Picking Girl (03:06)
1 13. Hazel Dickens - James Alley Blues (02:33)
1 14. Hazel Dickens - True Life Blues (02:36) 

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