This fall, Folkways reissued the first two LPs by the groundbreaking bluegrass duo of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard. In celebration of these reissues and in honor of the duo's legacy and cultural impact, we sat down with Alice at her home in Durham, North Carolina, to discuss her life and her experiences playing music with Hazel. This animated video was created from the interview that took place, and features their previously unreleased cover of The Louvin Brothers' "Childish Love."
Directed by Drew Christie
Illustrations by Gabe Adams
Animation & Type Design by Dane Herforth
Kalakala Animation: kalakala.co
Interview by Jonathan Williger, Charlie Weber, and Laura Shanahan
Pioneering Women of Bluegrass: The Definitive Edition is available now on CD and digital, and is an expanded reissue of the 1996 compilation Pioneering Women of Bluegrass. Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard's two Folkways LPs Won't You Come and Sing for Me? and Who's That Knocking? are also available now on vinyl and digital.
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The soaring harmonies and driving string-band sound of Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard shattered the glass ceiling of male-dominated bluegrass in the 1960s. Hazel and Alice’s influence on music - and not just roots music - is hard to overstate. They’ve been acknowledged by artists as diverse as country superstars Naomi and Wynonna Judd, champion flat-picker Molly Tuttle, and proto-feminist punk rocker Kathleen Hanna. Their steadfast devotion to their own hard-hitting style inspired generations of women in bluegrass.
Pioneering Women of Bluegrass: The Definitive Edition collects all the songs from Hazel and Alice’s two groundbreaking Folkways albums, and a previously unreleased bonus track, all remastered by their original producer Peter Siegel. They are joined on these recordings by such bluegrass legends as Chubby Wise and David Grisman. The CD booklet includes an expanded set of essays by Hazel, Alice, Laurie Lewis, and Peter Siegel, as well as iconic photographs by John Cohen and Carl Fleischhauer.
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