I chose this song because Hazel mentions that she is most proud of her song writing, and that this song is one she is especially proud of.”Īlbuquerque Film + Music Experience – Friday, September 16, 2022, 9:30am, NHCC – Wells Fargo Theatre, 1701 4th St. There is one long Crankie scene in the film where Lost Patterns plays in its entirety, and that’s the only full song of Hazel’s we hear. Baltimore has a very active Crankie scene, and I worked with papercut artist Katherine Fahey to create the Crankies for my film. Since my film is a story about the past that looks towards the future, I was drawn to using this archaic form of storytelling and presenting it in a digital way. Throughout the film, scenes from Hazel’s life play out on a Crankie, a hand-scrolled panorama featuring cut paper and shadow puppetry. The film features interviews with Ginny Hawker, Dudley Connell, Ketch Secor, Karen Collins, Molly Tuttle, Avery Hellman, Tom Gray, and Buddy Dickens. The film ends with the bridge dedication ceremony, which felt like the most beautiful way to honor her since so many of her songs are about home. Her nephew Buddy took us (myself and a production/camera assistant) to a jam with musicians that had played with Hazel, we heard stories from them, and we visited her grave. One shoot that stands out was going down to her hometown of Montcalm, West Virginia, to film the dedication of the Hazel Dickens Memorial Bridge on her birthday in 2019. The fact that Hazel continues to get honored in the years after her death made me feel like this is a relevant time to make this film, and that the audience of Hazel fans is still growing. In the time that I was working on this film, I ended up having a lot more opportunities for shoots than I thought I would! I thought I would mostly be filming interviews and working with archival content, but multiple events came up throughout the last few years – Hazel and Alice inducted to the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, Hazel’s induction to the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame, the release of Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, and the dedication of the Hazel Dickens Memorial Bridge. This funding was absolutely essential and made the film possible. I was accepted to be a fellow at the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund at Johns Hopkins with this project, and that provided me with storytelling workshops, feedback, a great editing mentor who was familiar with Hazel’s music, and then I also received funding for the film from SZIF. I didn’t end up using any of the ceremony footage in the end, but it was still so inspiring to be there and see how many people have been touched by Hazel’s music.Īfter that shoot, I was filming with Hazel’s nephew Buddy and a few Baltimore-based musicians, and learning more about Hazel, and I really got going on the film in 2019. Hazel and Alice were inducted to the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in the fall of 2017, and that was the first big shoot I did for the film. I met up with Buddy in early 2017 and proposed my idea for this film and he was very supportive, and I finished the film in December 2021. I was talking to a musician friend about her, and he mentioned that her nephew Buddy lives in Baltimore and is active in the music scene. I then found the Pioneering Women of Bluegrass album, and that’s when I really dove into her music. I was listening to a playlist of covers of Long Black Veil, and when Hazel and Alice’s version came on, I was absolutely struck by her voice. “Until I came across the music of Hazel Dickens, I had not realized that up to that point I was primarily listening to men play bluegrass. Golonka provides this background information … Lifelong collaborators and up-and-coming musicians share what it means to have bluegrass songs written from a woman’s point of view, and keep Hazel’s memory alive. The short film – 32 minutes long – covers Hazel’s migration to Baltimore from coal country West Virginia, her activism for coal miners and working people, and the impact her upbringing had on her song writing. A new Julia Golonka film about IBMA Hall of Fame member Hazel Dickens takes its title from Dickens’ powerful anthem Don’t Put Her Down, You Helped Put Her There, and explores how she, along with her musical partner Alice Gerrard, became the first women to front a bluegrass band, and reflects on the role of women in bluegrass today.
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