Working Girl Blues The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens By Hazel Dickens and Bill C. Malone University of Illinois Press 2008 120 Pages ISBN:  0-25207-549-8

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Hazel Dickens is an Appalachian singer and songwriter known for her superb musicianship, feminist country songs, union anthems, and blue-collar laments. Growing up in a West Virginia coal mining community, she drew on the mountain music and repertoire of her family and neighbors when establishing her own vibrant and powerful vocal style that is a trademark in old-time, bluegrass, and traditional country circles. Working Girl Blues presents forty original songs that Hazel Dickens wrote about coal mining, labor issues, personal relationships, and her life and family in Appalachia. Conveying sensitivity, determination, and feistiness, Dickens comments on each of her songs, explaining how she came to write them and what they meant and continue to mean to her. Bill C. Malone's introduction traces Dickens's life, musical career, and development as a songwriter, and the book features forty-one illustrations and a detailed discography of her commercial recordings. About the Author Bill C. Malone is a professor emeritus of history at Tulane University. He is the author of several books, including Don't Get above Your Raisin': Country Music and the Southern Working Class.