Hazel Dickens was born in the coal camps of West
Virginia and watched as poverty and bad health took its toll on her
family. She migrated to the Washington, D.C. area where she found
her home in the thriving bluegrass music community there. She
writes songs that come out of her traditional baptist past, but
that are rooted in themes of liberation and human rights. Hazel
performed for years with Alice Gerrard as the duo, Hazel and Alice,
and their music directly influenced countless musicians, including
the Judds, who decided to sing together because of the Hazel and
Alice recording. Dickens continues to write and perform with her
own bluegrass band, and has become a major figure in bluegrass
music, recently receiving the Bluegrass Music Association's Life Time
Achievement Award.