In my 20's, when I was first immersing myself in country music, a friend said to me "you've gotta hear this album by this lady Hazel Dickens....Hard Hittin' Songs for Hard Hit People." Being that the dark and sad side of C&W was one of the things that really drew me to the music, the title alone was enough to perk my interest. Dutifully I turned up a few days later with my blank cassette tape and recorded the album. What an album. Hazel has an expressive, powerful, old school Appalachian singer's voice, her music is a unique blend of bluegrass and country and western, and this album covers a lot of ground - from a kid gunned down robbing a liquor store (Merle Haggard's Out Among The Stars), to being old and lonely (Calloused Hands), or plain being broke (Busted). Over the years I think I've learned about half the songs on this record. It had a major influence on me and in fact, gave me the title of one of the first songs I wrote - The Hard Hit Song, recorded by The Dogbreath Brothers.
Okay, here's a story. Once when Carolyn Mark played The Calgary Folk Festival, Hazel was on the program too. Carolyn brought me back this polaroid of Hazel. It's so folk festival, gotta be one of those workshops they throw together....Hazel with a cabassa....come on! Last April, the morning after a show I played which Carolyn had attended, we ended up jamming and sang the Hazel song Lost Patterns. Later that day Carolyn found out Hazel had died the night before. Damn, this is making me sad.
I've always thought this was a great song. The combination of imagery, emotion, and narrative makes it compelling. Recently, Rachelle Reath and I arranged the song as a duet and have started to perform it together. Lost Patterns tells the story of a couple who's relationship crumbles under everyday pressures - bills, unemployment.......hard to say exactly, but the chorus tag kind of sums it up - "with all the wearing and the tearing, the caring just walks right out the door." Here's us performing the song.
Hazel Dickens was many things. A strong honest songwriter, a great interpreter of songs, a pioneer in terms of women playing bluegrass music, and a political activist, both for workers (specifically coal miner's) and women. Here's a youtube bio of Hazel...
Okay, here's a story. Once when Carolyn Mark played The Calgary Folk Festival, Hazel was on the program too. Carolyn brought me back this polaroid of Hazel. It's so folk festival, gotta be one of those workshops they throw together....Hazel with a cabassa....come on! Last April, the morning after a show I played which Carolyn had attended, we ended up jamming and sang the Hazel song Lost Patterns. Later that day Carolyn found out Hazel had died the night before. Damn, this is making me sad. I've always thought this was a great song. The combination of imagery, emotion, and narrative makes it compelling. Recently, Rachelle Reath and I arranged the song as a duet and have started to perform it together. Lost Patterns tells the story of a couple who's relationship crumbles under everyday pressures - bills, unemployment.......hard to say exactly, but the chorus tag kind of sums it up - "with all the wearing and the tearing, the caring just walks right out the door." Here's us performing the song.
Lost Patterns - Hazel Dickens
The worn out linoleum has lost its pattern on the kitchen floor
And the woman who once scrubbed it has turned around and walked right out the door
The oilcloth on the table she wiped so many times it's almost gone
And the elbows leaning on it, held the head of a man who drank alone
Every now and then his empty can would shatter the silence of the room
As it landed on her pretty face still smiling from a broken picture frame
Lately since she left him he just sits at the kitchen table drinking beer
Staring at that worn linoleum, trying to trace the lost patterns in his tears
Chorus
It's hard luck, hard times and too many rainy days
Hard working people who just get by from pay to pay
It takes it toll upon us, we sometimes drive away the ones who care
With all the wearing and the tearing, the caring just walks right out the door
!!ACCORDION ENTHUSIAST ALERT!!
Though you can't tell in the video, I'm playing a different accordion. Yah, Big Red is a little miffed, but I have this big bad mother of a Tonaveri on loan from the Mintenko family and I had to give it a squeeze. The keys are smaller than Big Red's and the buttons on the left hand are much closer together, so it's taking some getting used to. On the other hand, the bellows are nice and tight, the action on the keys crisp, the reeds fresh and clear....it's a sweet instrument Okay, so now a confession that might not make me a lot of friends: people who are all weirdly obssessive about accordions creep me out. There it is. What better place to make enemies in the accordion community than on the worldwide web. Now that's out of the way, here's some weirdly obssessive pics of the Tonaveri sure to delight the accordion enthusiast. Check out these reed settings! This thing's a cadillac. Mellow? What the?!?! Best thing is when you press it.....nothing happens! Sweet. 
The Organ setting is seriously addicitive
And they didn't skimp on the bass settings either
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