Musician. One of the few female bluegrass performers of her time, she drew on her coal country childhood for much of her music. Raised in the southern West Virginia coalfields where her father was a preacher and timber hauler and her brothers miners, she moved to Baltimore in the 1950s to work in a factory though she soon found that big city poverty was no more pleasant than rural poverty. In the 1960s the made the short move to Washington, DC, where she was to remain; there she met Mike Seeger, younger brother of Pete, and formed the duo "Hazel & Alice" with Mike's wife Alice Gerrard. With Hazel on upright bass and Alice on acoustic guitar the pair released their first album, "Who's That Knocking", on Folkways in 1965. They produced four more discs before breaking up in 1976; Hazel's initial solo recording, "Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People" was published by Rounder Records in 1981 and was followed with a number of others. Heard singing "Coal Tattoo" on the soundtrack of 1976's Oscar-winning documentary "Harlan County, USA" she both sang and was seen on screen in "Matewan" (1987) and the 2000 "Songcatcher". Hazel received the International Bluegrass Music Association Merit Award in 1994, was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2007, and in 2008 was honored with the National Heritage Award by the National Endowment for the Arts. She died in as Washington hospice of the complications of pneumonia leaving a significant recorded legacy including a number of the Smithsonian Folkways offerings.
Musician. One of the few female bluegrass performers of her time, she drew on her coal country childhood for much of her music. Raised in the southern West Virginia coalfields where her father was a preacher and timber hauler and her brothers miners, she moved to Baltimore in the 1950s to work in a factory though she soon found that big city poverty was no more pleasant than rural poverty. In the 1960s the made the short move to Washington, DC, where she was to remain; there she met Mike Seeger, younger brother of Pete, and formed the duo "Hazel & Alice" with Mike's wife Alice Gerrard. With Hazel on upright bass and Alice on acoustic guitar the pair released their first album, "Who's That Knocking", on Folkways in 1965. They produced four more discs before breaking up in 1976; Hazel's initial solo recording, "Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People" was published by Rounder Records in 1981 and was followed with a number of others. Heard singing "Coal Tattoo" on the soundtrack of 1976's Oscar-winning documentary "Harlan County, USA" she both sang and was seen on screen in "Matewan" (1987) and the 2000 "Songcatcher". Hazel received the International Bluegrass Music Association Merit Award in 1994, was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2007, and in 2008 was honored with the National Heritage Award by the National Endowment for the Arts. She died in as Washington hospice of the complications of pneumonia leaving a significant recorded legacy including a number of the Smithsonian Folkways offerings.
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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