Hazel Dickens

Burlington, MA - Renowned folk/bluegrass artist Hazel Dickens will be honored as one of the inaugural inductees into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, Friday, November 16, at The Cultural Center in Charleston, WV.

Considered one of the most influential and powerful artists, male or female, in the world of Americana music, Dickens will be presented with her award by her longtime admirer, Alison Krauss. As a performer, songwriter, advocate, and mentor, Hazel Dickens has steadfastly refused to be categorized or stereotyped.

Growing up in the shadow of the exploitive and dangerous coal mining industry in West Virginia, Dickens and two of her eleven siblings moved to the Baltimore area in the late 1950s. She quickly fell in with urban musicians such as Mike Seeger and Alice Gerrard, who were captivated by the traditional music Dickens had grown up singing and hearing in West Virginia. Performing as Hazel and Alice, Dickens and Gerrard recorded four albums together before parting ways in 1976.

After their partnership dissolved, Dickens released a series of solo albums that presented her uniquely personal amalgam of old-time string band sounds, bluegrass, protest songs, and classic country. She took her experience in the coal mining trade and transformed it into the material she would use for a lasting musical career that has spoken up for the overworked, underpaid, and iron-willed.

Her songs such as “Working Girl Blues,” “Black Lung,” and “Don’t Put Her Down, You Helped Put Her There,” have provided a voice for the many lives that have found themselves in similar situations. Her music was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary Harlan County, U.S.A., which depicted the tensions surrounding a coal miners’ strike in rural Kentucky. Her poignant songs, such as “Mama’s Hand,” “A Few Old Memories,” “West Virginia, My Home,”and “You’ll Get No More of Me,” (available on Rounder Records) have been widely recorded by other artists. In 2001, Dickens was awarded a Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest official honor bestowed on traditional musicians by the U.S. Government.

For more information and a complete list of inductees visit the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame online.

From Rounder

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IIIrd Tyme Out

Friday November 16

Bobby Osborne & The Rocky Top X-Press - 8:00-8:30
Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver - 9:00-9:30
Jesse McReynolds & The Virginia Boys - 9:30-10:00

Saturday November 17

Mike Snider - 6:30-7:00 & 9:30-10:00
IIIrd Tyme Out - 8:00-8:30 & 10:30-11:00
Jesse McReynolds & The Virginia Boys - 8:30-9:00
Bobby Osborne & The Rocky Top X-Press - 10:00-10:30

The Grand Ole Opry is broadcast live on WSM 650 AM radio, online at www.WSMonline.com and on XM Satellite Radio (XM 11). All listed times are central time.

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Tommy Jarrell

The North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance will honor late old-time fiddle and banjo player Tommy Jarrell, Rounder Records and gospel/soul vocalist Mavis Staples as recipients of the 2008 Elaine Weissman Lifetime Achievement Awards during the Folk Awards Show February 20, 2008.

The awards are given to those who have inspired others, achieved definitive leadership in their field and contributed to the advancement of folk music and/or dance. Each year the Lifetime Achievement Awards honor two performers, one living and one legacy, and a person or institution involved in the business or academic side of the folk music world, who have devoted their life’s work to the advancement of the performing folk arts.

The old time sounds of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina were preserved through the recordings of fiddler, banjo player and vocalist Tommy Jarrell, who passed in 1985. Having recorded 9 albums during his career, Jarrell’s music serves as a reminder of his legacy in old time appalachian music history.

In the late 1960’s, Jarrell was performing at folk festivals throughout the west and midwest. In ‘82, Jarrell was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for The Arts. Jarrell was also featured in several documentaries including, “Sprout Wings & Fly,” “My Old Fiddle,” and “Legends Of Old Timey Music.”

In 1970, with their passionate enthusiasm for American roots music lighting the way, three Cambridge, Mass. college students started Rounder. Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin, Marian Leighton-Levy began a label that now has more than 3,000 titles running the gamut from folk, bluegrass, soul and many other genres.

Founded in 1989, the Folk Alliance seeks to create new and better opportunities for those involved in the performing folk arts.

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