HARD HITTING SONGS FOR HARD HIT PEOPLE

Say goodbye to Hazel Dickens, an American singer, songwriter and guitar player who passed away this week. She was the eighth child of an eleven-child mining family in West Virginia, and she sang in a high lonesome voice about coal country--mining songs, union songs, feminist songs and songs about growing up dirt poor. "Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People," was how she put it on one of her albums. She recorded for Folkways, and became part of the bluegrass and folk music scene in the early 1960s. Hazel appeared in the coal mining documentary "Harlan County, USA" and the John Sayles' film "Matewan."

Hazel Jane Dickens (June 1, 1935 – April 22, 2011)