On a beautiful day in Washington, DC, several months before terror strikes at the heart of our nation, I arrive at Hazel Dickens' home with a bouquet of summer flowers. With a minimum of fuss, we sit down in her small apartment and begin our conversation. She sips tea and sucks lozenges, trying to anesthetize the frog in her throat. I discreetly look around at the simple furnishings, the large collection of CDs, the framed photograph of George Jones on the wall… and as I listen to her voice, I am transported from the slick complexity of the city to the rolling hills of rural West Virginia. No matter how many miles or years separate her from the mines and mountains of her youth, Hazel's voice, and her music, and indeed her self , are as deeply rooted there as any of the tall green pines of her birthplace.

Later, it occurs to me that the qualities comprising the essence of Hazel Dickens are often contradictory. She is both proud and humble; she is steel-strong, yet vulnerable as a child. Sometimes, particularly when she smells pretension or snobbery, she's feisty, even ornery - but she radiates wistful awe when we talk about simple luxuries. She has traveled all over the globe, yet one senses that the world sometimes still mystifies her with its busy comings and goings. She is a bridge between raw simplicity and cool sophistication, between heart and intellect, between the worlds of the ruling elite and the common man.

Here are some facts of Hazel Dickens' life: She was the eighth of eleven children, born in Mercer County, West Virginia to a rigid fundamentalist preacher and his wife. As an infant, she almost died of a mysterious ailment, but was saved by the love and strength of her mother; the story was immortalized in Carry Me Across The Mountain , a tune written by Jeff White, John Pennell, and Billy Smith, and hauntingly rendered by Dan Tyminski. She was forced to abandon formal education when she was in the 6th or 7th grade because she didn't have anything to wear to school. She left West Virginia at 16 and followed her older siblings to Baltimore, and worked in factories and retail until she could support herself with her music. Her alliance, in the early 60s, with singer Alice Gerrard resulted in a grassroots soundtrack for the women's movement. Her songs have been featured in a number of acclaimed films, including Harlan County, USA, Matewan , and Songcatcher . In 1993, she was the first artist to be honored with a Merit Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association. She received a doctorate of humanities from Shepard College in West Virginia in 1998, and a National Heritage Fellowship in September 2001, official recognition of her priceless contribution to American music.

I contemplate all this, and I interview several of her close friends, who offer warm words of praise and affection. Ken Irwin, head of Rounder Records, first met Miss Hazel in about 1971. He tells me of her influence on musicians from a wide variety of musical genres, including kd lang, the Judds, and an alternative West Coast rock band called X. “Did she talk at all about the Japanese tour?” he asks me. “That was the first place I saw the idol worship, these young Japanese women coming up and just crying, holding her hand…” In spite of all the acclaim and accolades, Hazel remains accessible and compassionate. "She was with me the first time we met Alison Krauss and her parents," says Ken. "She was there when we signed the contract. She's been to innumerable recording sessions, and always brings little things, food for the people, and she sometimes helps with phrasing… just makes a lot of younger people who are not as experienced in the studio comfortable. She'll spend time on her own with nothing to gain from it - just liking the artist and wanting to help out."

Barry Mitterhoff, a mandolinist who has worked with Hazel for 24 years, reminisces about shows they did for the Pittston Mine strike, and the boycott of textile maker JP Stevens, and the Boston “women only” workshop for which Hazel showed up with an all-male band. I ask him what he's learned from her. “When I first started playing, there were certain people whose singing just knocked me out. Being onstage with someone who has that sort of power and sincerity is really a great thing. The guys in the band a lot of times will get goosebumps from playing with her! I'm not a singer really; I just get up there and play. If I can express just a fraction of the emotion with my playing that she can with her singing, then I feel like I'm doing okay.”

Lynn Morris, whose extraordinary cover of “Mama's Hand”, a Dickens-penned tune, was IBMA Song of the Year in 1996, comments on Miss Hazel's sense of humor and the feminine perspective from which she writes her powerful songs. Then she talks about courage. “In a world that teaches women to be compliant and agreeable; to defer to opinion… we all know that it takes courage to do other than that. You've really got to be brave. You can always look to Hazel as someone who wasn't afraid to just, without apology, say and sing what's on her mind.” She pauses for a moment, and adds, “And if you told me I had to write songs about my childhood, and leaving home, and old lovers, stuff like that…” She gasps in mock horror. “I don't wanna do that! Thank goodness there's people like Hazel who have done it for us, and we can sing our own songs through her.”

I think about everything that Hazel has shared with me. Her story, as she tells it, is far more powerful and eloquent than anything I have read. I am aghast at the prospect of diluting her words into colorless facts and details. Finally, I realize that the person most qualified to talk about Hazel… is Hazel herself.

Here, then, in her own words, is Hazel Dickens.

On early childhood memories

There's a couple. One is waking up very early one morning with music blasting through the house. My father liked to play it loud when he had the radio on… and my mother out in the kitchen baking biscuits and making gravy and frying eggs and bacon. Just the smell of that, along with the music coming through the mountains. There was this mist that came over the hill… it just engulfed everything. You could barely see the outline of the trees.

Another one… My older sister did a lot of the wash back then, and the ironing; they had stove irons… I remember wondering why I still had to be in bed and she said, “Until your dress dries!” I don't know if I made that up, or if it was true, but I do believe that it was, because we were very poor.

A third one was when I was very young… between four and five. We lived beside a railroad track, and even though my brothers worked in the mines, we often didn't have money to buy coal. As a little kid, I was always real aware of things, always wanting to help. I remember getting the coalscuttle, dragging it down to the railroad tracks, picking up coal and putting it in to drag back. They thought I was crazy when they saw me, but they didn't realize what an active mind I had.

On her childhood

I was late starting school, but I was not in good shape for a long time. I was so thin; my legs and arms were just… My first day at school, I was playing with some kids in the schoolyard, and the first-grade teacher was standing in the door. She pointed at me and said, “Look at that one.” I never forgot that, all my life, because I felt like there was something wrong with me, and it was the first time that anybody had ever said there was something wrong with me. My mother… all her children were just the same in her eyes; there was nothing wrong with any of 'em. They might have been mean as snakes! But they were her kids .

We didn't really have any toys. We'd sometimes build playhouses out of rocks. When you're a kid, growing up, you want to do other things. I always had a creative, curious mind, but nobody helping me with that. How many times can you go out and build a rock playhouse? You need other things to stimulate your mind. So when I got out in the world, everything was a curiosity to me.

On her mother, and being “carried across the mountain”

I almost died when I was three months old. I stopped taking the milk. Our local family doctor - he was just a country doctor - said there was nothing more that he knew what to do. My mother is not that kind of person that she would give up one of her children. She'd heard of a baby doctor. It was at a little town, I'd say ten miles away - but in order to get there, you had to take the train. She decided in August that she was going to go up that mountain, in that heat, get the train, find that doctor. Some of the family said, “You can't take that kid out in this heat; she's dehydrated already.” She didn't listen to them. She went out and found that doctor. To seek out the doctor, take me down, take the train, and get me back… so unlike my mother. She never went anywhere without my father. She pulled me through.

I don't know of many women who had it as hard. She didn't have any help because my father kept impregnating her. The child before me was so big she almost died. Of all eleven children and one miss, that was the closest to death she ever came. I was the next child, and so she did imbed a lot of fears in me, I'm sure. I don't think she meant to do that, but it was just a fact of life.

Of course, the MEN didn't have to have them… if the men had had 'em, there'd be one child! They'd probably have one, 'cause they'd have to prove they could do it. But I think that would have been it.

On her father

He was strict, my father was. Most of us in the family kind of feared him… you'd never know when he was gonna be temperamental about something. I'm sure he loved his children, but that's just the way a lot of those mountain people were… The church they belonged to didn't allow any outside influences. I think the fact that my father was very domineering kept us down a lot, because we didn't have anything to compare anything to. I can remember many times wanting to go places, and my father just wouldn't let us. It was a matter of control, of losing control.

On poverty

We didn't have anything to compare it to, so we really didn't know what we didn't have. We knew we wanted more to eat sometimes, different kinds of foods, and we didn't have them. We went to school and heard other children talk, and they'd bring [it], and we'd see it. I remember trading this kid a sandwich one time… he must have felt sorry for me. It was a pork loin sandwich, and God, did that smell good! I musta thought I was in heaven.

I remember getting on the school lunch program. That was the first time I had ever tasted food like that, except when we'd get invited to houses… When we went to church, they'd ask you to go home with them; that was one of the ways they'd commune or socialize. The wife would cook this great big meal. That was so surprising to me, when I would go to these places… they'd have TONS of food cooked up, and I'd make myself sick, because I didn't have a very strong stomach anyway.

One time I got my first ice cream cone, through that school program, and one of my little classmates wanted some of it. I was so adamant that I was going to have all that ice cream ! And I ran into my room and hid under the desk and ate it all.

It's funny, because I didn't grow up like that at all. But I remember one or two things in my childhood like that, where I was totally selfish. And I didn't regret it a bit!

I think it had a lot of compulsive impact. When I left home to go to work, my brother, who was a coal miner, went down to the company store and bought me a dress. All the pictures you saw after that, I had that same dress on. When I first got a job, I used to lie in bed at night and dream about the clothes I was gonna buy, because I'd never had any clothes.

Even though I live very plainly, it doesn't mean that I would not like to have something other than what I have. I would . I would like to have a nice house with a lot of nice furnishings. But I probably never will. For one thing, a house is too hard to keep. I have friends that have houses, and they all say what a pain they are. There's always something breaking down, and you always have to hire these people . They say it's an endless procession of repair people coming through your house. I wouldn't like that.

On leaving for Baltimore

My older sister lived there. She had gone up during the war, in the 40s, and they trained her to be a welder, and she went out on these cranes and welded ships. After that was over, she began getting factory jobs. She began trying to talk different ones into coming up. She would come back with money, and she'd talk to me… I'd talk about a guitar, and she'd say, “Oh, you can buy one! You can do anything - get a job, have all the clothes you want…” She was really selling it.

I begged my parents for a long time, and they could see that I needed clothes. I had to quit school because I didn't have clothes to wear. They finally gave in, so I went.

On city life

It made me feel very strange, particularly having to take a bus or streetcar ride downtown. The noise really bothered me. You'd set out on your steps at night, with these people parading past, and you'd wonder where they were going, and what they were up to, and you'd be so curious about them. Back home, you could do that, and you knew where people were going! There were only one or two places to go.

It was very exciting to me in a way, but I didn't know what to do with all that. I was very unsocialized, and I didn't know how to talk to people. And they sure didn't know how to talk to me! When you're that shy, you don't relate very well, and you try to find people that you can be close to. What you tend to do is you stay with those kinds of people. For a long time, even though we were in the city, we were still in the little hillbilly cliques of people.

On meeting boys

It wasn't a lot, 'cause I was too shy. I mean, how on earth was I going to meet anyone? [My father] never let us go anywhere anyway, without a chaperone. If I went out with a neighbor boy or something, I had to have people with us.

Even after I moved to the city, my sister and her friends tried to hook me up with this guy at the factory, because they knew I needed to get out and do things. I was very shy, and very hanging back. They fixed me up with this guy, and I told my brother he had to go with us. At the last minute, he backed out! So I had to go alone, and I was scared to death. [The guy] offered me a stick of gum, and I just put it in my mouth and held it there, because I didn't want to chew and swallow the juice; I didn't know what was on it. I was very suspicious!

On communing with the intellectuals

I met Mike Seeger in the 50s. He was working up at the TB hospital [in Baltimore], and my brother was in there. Mike got the address from my parents; I think they'd moved up by that time. He played music, so they told me to come over that day. I was very apprehensive about meeting him. I couldn't imagine what he wanted. I was thinking, “What would a person like that see in this old music?” I mean, this old stuff had been around forever!

Anyway, Mike came, and my brother and he started playing some. I was sort of eyeing him up and down… I hadn't joined them yet. I thought probably I'd test him a little bit, just to see how serious he really was. I figured if he could pass the test, then he could come on in, and be part of the family. So I went on and turned the damn radio up! I said, “This is how it oughtta sound!” Just being mean. Mike doesn't remember. He thought the whole experience was fine.

Anyway, I soon found out that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was. It wasn't having any effect, so I didn't get any charge out of it. So I joined them and had some fun.

I don't remember [what we played that night]… but if I had to guess, it would be Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers… I would imagine my brother and I sang something like “First Whippoorwill”, “I Hope You've Learned”, the lonesome stuff. Probably did “In The Pines”. Later on, I probably did a Kitty Wells song, because I was getting into Kitty Wells.

It was the first time, I believe, that the country people had met the city people on those grounds, trying to communicate through the different cultures. The years that each of us had, steeped in our culture, and to step across that line… They say, “Ne'er the twain shall meet.” I don't know how we met! It was to our mutual advantage, and it said a lot about how smart we all were. We must have been exceptional people.

I didn't have their kind of knowledge; I didn't have their education. I was not only trying to make that leap into the intellectual world, but I had to make that leap emotionally , and let go of the stigma of my background, to meet them on a level playing field. I was in great turmoil sometimes, always straddling the fence, trying to have one foot in their world, and one foot in the country.

On gender discrimination in bluegrass

There was always little things here and there that you could pick out. Most of the stuff that we did was on the Southern Folk Festival tour - so it was pretty much at colleges, some community centers… In these settings, we didn't encounter a lot of it. Probably where we would, if we had, was at a bluegrass festival. But where we had it, and didn't know it, was the fact that we weren't invited to most of them. That's the silent prejudice.

Most of 'em, even today, don't like to pay me what they pay the men. The only breaks I have gotten are from enlightened people who have found themselves [with] grant money, and would not let me work for a real little salary. [With] the awards that I've gotten, I should be getting what Ralph Stanley and all those people get. They don't want to pay me that, and if I charged that, they wouldn't hire me.

Sometime, if you are standing around talking about how you want the setup, if there's a guy there, promoters invariably talk to the guy, even though I'm the headliner, and the head of the band.

I hate it when they force me into being a bitch. I told this band one time, I think one of them might have said I was bitchy… I can't remember what the language was, but that was the gist of it. I said, “You know what? I detest you-all putting me in the position where I have to be a bitch!” I said, “If you did what you were supposed to do, I would be an entirely different person.” This is the real problem with people who can't see two inches from their nose. They don't realize how much they put people in that position, and then condemn them for what they say. They put them there themselves. It's a fact that if you're a woman, if you give a strong point of view, they naturally will say you're a bitch. But if a man can do the same thing, they will say he's clever. Assertive. A man that knows his own mind. But they will never say that about a woman.

When asked if she is a feminist

No! No. I'm just somebody that sticks up for myself.

On the National Heritage Fellowship

I don't know if I've really absorbed that yet. I know it's a terrific honor, one of the biggest honors that you can get. One of these days I'll believe it's me, probably. The concert is on September 21st, and during that week, they'll have the awards and dinners. I might ought to go out and buy some sort of a dress to wear, I've been thinking about that. Maybe I'll go to T.J. Maxx! No, I wouldn't put on no evening gown for anybody… I'll wear my boots and my skirt.

On the business of music

I hate the business side of it, and I've never been too good at that. I didn't know how to say no, for a long period of time. I really was not a very good manager, so I could've run myself into the ground. But I'm really trying to do better now. I'll just keep on doing what I do in my little homemade way, and if they want me, they want me. I'm having fun, writing songs and having my little cult following. It's enough to get the letters from them every now and then, and to go out and play every now and then. I don't need to set the world on fire.

On sexual harassment

[There were] people [whose] headset was if you were there, you must be there for something other than the music. They each would take their turn, coming around to test the waters… and a couple of them couldn't take no for an answer, and got belligerent a time or two. But they didn't know what a tough cookie they had to deal with! I'm sure my bark was worse than my bite, but it got rid of 'em.

On political and social causes

I'll go out if there's a cause that I believe in that has to do with children, or old people… You don't even have to pay me. I don't belong to any organizations at all. Probably people thought I did by the stands I take on some of the songs I write, but I never have, never will. I don't like anything organized. I don't like organized religion, you know? I was a person that would lend my music and my voice if needed, but I was never a person to go out and hardly organize anything , because I'm too shy, for one thing. I don't drive . How would I have gotten there?

People that wrote to me or called me, for either their union, or a woman's thing - I just let them have the song, and I never charged them royalties. And I said, “That's what the songs are written for.” Like “Working Girl Blues”, they used that; and “They'll Never Keep Us Down”, they used a lot, here and there. Even the United Mine Workers used that, and I don't think they gave me credit.

I have been there on the picket line, and to sing at rallies for striking miners, for textiles… I have pictures of me singing in front of the JP Stevens headquarters in New York; they roped off the block and put a truck bed out there. I actually wrote a song for it, and I've never sung it since. I have found, while doing political music, the more I did it, the more I stood up to take a stand, the less work I got. Most of these people won't stick their nose out. And a lot of people… it's like if they have a child taking dope in the family, they cannot accept it. It's just not done in this family . If there's somebody that has a thing about politics, they just don't want to be involved. If they're like that, you can't get them to take a stand on anything; you could not get them to put a woman on and say, “There's the stage. You do anything you want to do.” Because they wouldn't know what to do if a bunch of their regulars come up and said, “What you got that on there for? We don't need that .” They wouldn't know how to handle that. So they says, “Let's just don't do it, and then we won't have to handle it. We'll keep on keeping on the way we always did, and we know best.” It's like people that program the radio - “we know best what you should listen to.”

On her life philosophy

I've done many, many benefits for black lung, and for coal miners, and never charged them. I think it's awful if you can't ever do something without getting paid for it. I mean, that's the worst sin that I can think of in the world, if you can't ever lend a helping hand. If I have a religion, that's it: to take what I have, and be able to share it with somebody that needs it. If there's any religion in my life, it's for the working people , the working class. And I want to be that way as long as I have a breath.

On the American poor

One of the songs I've written this year is about America's poor. I can't even figure out myself why I'm so passionate about it. I'm always analyzing myself: Why do you do that? Why do you care? I can't ever get to the root of why I am, but it's with me like a plague.

I can go somewhere and see somebody that's being mistreated in a workplace, being bogged down. I won't say anything, and nobody will know that it touches me, but it has. When I leave that place, I think about them. I can't explain that. It's something I feel deep inside me, how they get exploited. There are people, when you think about it, that are going to be doing the same job , if it's waiting tables, if it's digging ditches, or whatever… all their life , that's what they're going to be doing. And they're never going to get any further. When I think about that sometimes, it just grips me from top to bottom, it just grips my soul. Because I've seen a lot of that. I've seen a lot of that in my family, and I've seen what it did to them.

It always irks me when they talk about the economy in this country, about how everything's so great, everybody's working, but where are they working, and how many jobs are they working? How are they being treated?

It's a song I've wanted to write for a long time. What inspired me was my niece, who I'll probably help with [the National Heritage Foundation] award. She was working in North Carolina in factories; she and her husband separated, and she was left to raise her kids. And [the factories] had her train these people. And then they went off to south of the border and put 'em to work in a factory they opened up down there. She was left nothing; she didn't have any insurance, and she was so sick. That's in there, that's the last verse. I don't know if she'll ever come out of it.

She came up and took care of her mother, my sister that died. No hospice person or nurse, I don't care how much you paid them, could do what she did for her mother. That's the kind of person she is. She didn't let no nurse take care of her mother; she took care of her mother. This is how society treats people like that.

Anyway, those things are what I think about when I think about working people and poor people. The stories are there, if you just dig 'em out.

The saying I got from a book, I can't remember who wrote it, it said: “The meek will never inherit anything but a new set of chains.” If anybody believes different then they are out of touch with reality.

On her proudest accomplishment

I guess the fact that I survived is probably my biggest accomplishment. When I think back on some of those things, which most people don't know about, and they never will, probably… Life was not easy when I went to the city; it wasn't easy before I left. People don't know what kind of environment I had to go into - my working environment, and my living environment, too. How it was, sleeping on somebody else's couch, and a lot of the people drank, and I didn't. I guess there was one situation after the other like that; it was not a good environment.

I don't type. I don't read music. And I don't know a bunch of chords on the guitar; I only know what I need. You're not talking about somebody that is really overly equipped to handle it. So I guess my biggest accomplishment is the miracle that I am here.

That I have gotten the awards I have gotten is even a bigger miracle. But most people will never know that. How many people can function in this music business without a car? You ride a lot of Greyhounds, a lot of trains, a lot of cabs.

On driving

I was always a little nervous in a car. I think my brothers took care of that, scaring me… I always thought if I hit anybody, I would die. If they didn't die, I would. Sometimes I dream of driving a car. I used to dream of driving a truck! Anything where I thought I might endanger someone else, was anything I never did do. I just wasn't sure that I would make a good driver. I probably would have made a driver that [goes] ten miles an hour down the expressway, afraid I would get too close to somebody!

On what she could've done differently

I would probably get somewhat of an education, but not a lot. Not enough to ruin me! I would try to get enough that I had some command of the English language. I just copied everybody. That was the other thing I did; I was always picking up what somebody else would do. If they would use a word in front of me, I would try to remember it.

I got in trouble when I was a teenager. One time one of my neighbors - her parents were educated - brought this word, and it was monotonous , and I had no idea what monotonous meant. We were playing post office, and one of these little guys took me out on the porch, and we were kissin', and makin' out… So I got scared, 'cause this thing was getting out of hand, and so I said, “Well, we better go back in the house; this is getting monotonous !” I didn't get asked out to the porch by him anymore, or anywhere else.

I think I would learn to drive. And I think if I could turn my life around and go back, I would have probably gotten some therapy early on, so that I wouldn't have wasted half my life on these guys walking through. I could have spent more of my time songwriting, and learning to be a better musician.

I would have taken probably better care of my health. Not that I have any real drastic problems; I've never had an operation, which is good, but I would have taken better care of my teeth, so I wouldn't have had to spend all that money getting my whole mouth redone.

I wish that I would have had somebody early on to advise me wisely to take care of what I had, my voice, and to put me with people of my background that I could have sang with in my prime, when I really had the stamina and the voice. I wouldn't have wasted all those years just in factories or with people who didn't really appreciate what they had at their fingertips.

But it mostly has to do with, I guess, selfish things, like taking care of ME. 'Cause I took care of a lot of other people, and I would probably have been a little bit more selfish… I guess.

Well, I probably wouldn't have.

On her music in films

There are lots of films. The latest one is Songcatcher . And the one before that was The Journey of August King , they did “Fly Away, Little Pretty Bird”… There's Matewan , and Harlan County, USA . A lot of little documentaries from Appalshop. One was Coal Mining Women ; I wrote an original song for the soundtrack. Another one, they used “West Virginia, My Home,” and “Busted”, and “Clara Sullivan's Last Letter”. I rewrote “Rebel Girl” for a film called With Babies and Banners [the untold story of the women who were the backbone of the General Motors sit-down strike of 1937].

On the John Sayles one [ Matewan ], he used a song that I had brought to it from my father's church, the most primitive singing you'll find anywhere. He flew up to the studio when I was there and had me re-cut it. It was over all the credits. It's called “Beautiful Hills of Galilee”. People tell me that when the film is over, they stay for the credits, because they want to hear that song.

On the music that influenced her

A lot of the old-timers. Molly O'Day, as far as the old-time female singers, was probably one that I admired the most. In country music, I used to do a lot of Kitty Wells. Rose Maddox. Patsy Montana. I love the Coon Creek Girls! Lily Mae Ledford. She's gotta go right up to the top of the list there. Ola Belle Reed. I like the idea of what Cousin Emmy did, but I was never all that crazy about her music. But she was a broad that clawed her way to the top, I'll tell you.

As far as the men are concerned, we started out with Bill Monroe; he was like one of the family. Then later, the Stanley Brothers. The Louvin Brothers, I just can't say enough about them. I just really, really love their harmony. Ira was genius, just an absolute genius. And I don't think enough people appreciated him in his life. I fortunately got to see them a time or two.

I always liked lyrics, and people who sang harmony… the Carter Family, the Blue Sky Boys… a lot of the duet singing. A lot of the old string bands, too. I listened to Don Reno and Red Smiley a lot. But we'd always go around to see the Stanleys a lot. We'd go to see them wherever they were. That was my purist stage, listening to them.

George Jones has always been top of my list; I guess you see all these pictures around me. But when he was doing his best songs. He'd go through stages when he'd record songs that were not very good.

I think I probably took a little bit from everybody. I went through a stage of trying to copy and sing like them, but I found that I got bored with that after a while. It was not as fulfilling to me as trying to do it my way, my style. I thought, “Well, why are you putting yourself through this? If somebody wants to hear them , they're gonna go hear them . They're not gonna come hear you do a Stanley Brothers song.” So I just began saying that if I was gonna do a song, I was gonna have to do it my way. That sounds egotistical, but it's not; that was easier for me.

On being Dr. Hazel Dickens

When I got my honorarium, my doctorate, it was printed once in [the newsletter of] Folk Alliance , and Murphy Henry mentioned it in her [ Bluegrass Unlimited ] column. But you hear “Dr. Stanley” all over the place! I never have talked about it. I don't go around saying doctor. I've signed it just for fun. I did it on somebody's banjer head, because Dr. Ralph Stanley was on there, and so just for meanness I put Dr. Hazel Dickens right under it. Just for meanness!

On anonymity

The other day I got this mail from Rounder; I don't ever tell anybody who I am. And [the mailman] said, “So do you like Rounder Records? I notice you get a lot of mail from them…” and I said, “Yeah, I do; I'm in the business.” And the Post article had just come out that week. I started to go get it to show it to him, and I thought no, no, no, no . I want the same relationship that we've always had. I'm sure there was a selfish act somewhere in there, probably protecting myself in some way.

When this thing came out in the Post , with this great big picture on the magazine, I went out in the hall, and the paper had been delivered, and I looked down and said, “Oh, my gosh… that's me , staring up at me!” And I took that thing and I flipped it over! I thought, “God, everybody in the building is gonna be reading this!” And then I thought, “Everybody in the building? How about a million people!” Because they said they had over a million readers. Lord. I said, “Soon as this comes out, I'm headed for the hills!”

On relating to fans

In this supermarket, I got this woman [who said] “Hey! Are you…?” And I said yeah. The thing is, you have to stand and talk to people a few minutes. They have surprised themselves that they did that with such an emotional outburst. And then you're the therapist for a little while. You stand there and you talk for a while. If you're in the supermarket, you talk about the green beans, the broccoli… you sit there and you talk, and you can see them calming down. They're really thankful to you for talking to them, and not just saying “Thank you, thank you.” Ricky Skaggs signed an autograph for me that he doesn't know to this day that he signed… he was signing away, and I went through the line… I just wanted to test it out, and sure enough, “Thank you, thank you!”

I've worked all my life. I have worked all my life . I know what work is, and I know you have to commit yourself to it. Once I commit myself to that bluegrass festival, I'm gonna do the best job that I can do. And I know the people are gonna come up, and it's not my place to get egotistical at that point. It's my place to serve while I'm there, and be theirs while I'm there. I consider it a job, I consider it a privilege, I consider it a gift to have the vocal power, and I consider it an honor to have all these people like me. And I marvel at why they do. As long as they want to spend their time and their money being there, I owe it to them.

Some people don't look at it like that; they look at it like, “I did my job, and now I'm getting out of here.” I have heard tales about them standing on their big buses, and saying, “My God, when is that line going to end?” But Loretta Lynn didn't do that; she'd sit there till her fingers dropped off. And I think Dolly's like that, too.

When you open yourself up that you are going to be part of the public, you are… you're very public. They want to know everything about you. But when you open yourself up to that, you've got to be aware that they're going to make demands on you, and there's certain things that you're not going to like. Like when a person comes up and doesn't want to let go, and the line keeps filling up with people to talk to… you have to learn how to handle people. When you put yourself out there, that you are going to be so egotistical, and you are going to think that you have something to offer, a commodity that the people want… well, who are you to then say, “I'm gonna remove myself on 'em. I'll take what I want, I've got their money, I've sang my 45 minutes, and - as my song says - 'you'll get no more of me'.” But you cannot be like that, because you have opened yourself up like a book, you've opened your door, and you've invited them in. So if you have invited them in, by golly, what are you gonna do, be a bad hostess? You have to give them what they want. If they want autographs, you give them autographs; if they want pictures, you stand there and smile, without a smirk, and if they want a hug, you give 'em a hug. You're almost like their servant for a while. It's your job.

It's what you do with it, and how you handle it, and the strength and dignity that you bring to it. You don't have to get up there like some of those rock stars, and sneer down at the audience, and act like you're doing them a favor for being there. [Those stars] are not doing anybody a favor for being there; I don't care how good they think they are.

On loneliness as the songwriter's friend

There's this place inside of everybody where you go to be alone, and everybody needs to go there, alone . When you go to that place, you need to replenish yourself from that spring that's there. And when you do, the water needs to be a nice, refreshing drink - I'm thinking the dippers we had back home, the water buckets and the springs. And if you don't [replenish yourself], you may not know it, but something's gonna happen to you. It happened to me for many years; I was not doing that, and neither was I writing songs. Sometime it takes lonely to pull it out of you, and sometime it takes turmoil to stir it that other side and get you to be in touch with reality.

And you can write a good song. When my ex-husband [the late Joe Cohen] was trying to come back, I wrote “My Better Years”, one of the best songs, I think, that I've written. And some others, I've written out of affairs that gave me the little fire that I need in my belly to go ahead. The amber was dying low, and it fired it up. Sometimes being lonely will do that.

I was in a relationship with somebody that couldn't be alone. And every time we weren't together, the other person figured they had to somebody's house, or have somebody over. I wondered why. I knew that when some couples got married, there was always somebody living at their house. And they could not be alone. I'm just now starting to put it together that there are people that just get terrified if they're alone. I used to sometime turn the television off and say, “We're gonna be forced to talk to each other… we're not gonna have the television on now.” You'd be surprised at how many people are together that cannot talk together.

That's why I stayed [in Washington, DC] - it was the first time I ever had any solitude, the first time that I was ever totally alone. The bulk of my writing's been done here, most of it in that back room. I don't write out here. I go in there and close the door, and nobody comes in.

On traveling, and going to Cuba

I played Japan; I did a couple festivals there, and a club. We traveled on to Hong Kong; I didn't play there… went over to China for two days, and then flew to Australia and New Zealand. I sang one night at a little thing in Australia; it was like a folk club. I went to Cuba in 1978, when Harlan County USA , came out. They had the 13th Annual Youth Festival. All these countries come, and it's like a show and tell; you do your thing, crafts, or music. Barbara [Kopple, the producer of the film] invited me to come, and get on some of the programs with the songwriters. I'm not sure what kind of impact we made, but it was fun being there, seeing all these people in their native garbs, in one big arena where they were marching around, everybody in native dress.

One thing I had decided that I didn't want to be on, and they wanted me to, but it was too rambunctious. It was like this hot music, salsa or something, I don't know what you call it… dancers on the stage, with these dresses, and I was supposed to sing after that, like “Black Lung” and “Mannington Mine”… and I told 'em I didn't want to. “Oh, no, you've got to! You're from America; we want you to sing!” I said “No, you don't understand. This is not gonna go over; it's gonna fall flat, after all that loud music, and dancing.” So I didn't, but I went on with a local guy, a real good songwriter, very in tune with the people, doing working class music. That's about it.

I might have done something when the film was shown, because I was invited to where all the film people was at. I remember that, because we were fed better! Where we were staying, at a little technical institute, we didn't get fed as well. We didn't get treated as well as the Russians!

If she hadn't invited me, I wouldn't have gone. And even if I was invited today, I wouldn't go. That was my adventurous period, and I was invited at the drop of a hat. They'd say, “We're showing Harlan County and we'll pay your expenses,” and I'd just up and go. I was flying all over the place, not getting paid for it. They'd just pay my expenses. I was of a head that thought, if I can do some good here, I've gotta go to it, and if people want me, I should go, if they're putting that much faith in my music and what I'm doing.

On going back to Mercer County

I take the train in and they drive down to get me. It's about 29 miles for them. We were driving up that road, and I was looking at all these lush trees, and they were just yakking away. I said, “You know, you're just driving along, yakking away, and I'm just lookin' and lookin'…” They said, “Oh, we see this all the time!” I said, “You're just taking it for granted!” I'd forgotten how beautiful it was. They said, “Well, come on back!” They're always trying to get me to come back. “If you ever get sick,” my niece says, “we're getting a truck right up there and we're gittin' you right back here!” I said, “I think you ought to discuss it with me first.”

On beng a musical icon

Something has happened this last couple of years that I've been getting more interviews than I've ever had my entire career. Rock, punk, rap… all those styles of music are starting to pay attention. I've gotten requests to do concerts and workshops with them. And one time, a political record which I didn't follow up on. They were gonna pair me with some of the top rock stars, but I got a little scared. Sometime you try to sing, it seems logical because you're in the right headset. But when you try to sing with some people, you don't blend. So I backed away. I don't know who I would have ended up with, but [Bruce] Springsteen was mentioned, and some other ones.

On what she wants to do before it's all over

I want to make another record. There were a lot of records that I wanted to make, but knowing how I procrastinate, I won't. I've always wanted to do an old-time record, like only I could do, like I learned from my family. I don't know. I want to do one like I've been doing for the last few years, with my own songwriting and a few songs I've kept hanging around for a while. I used to say that I would like to do a blues record but I think that's getting further and further back in my head.

I would like to write a few more songs that just satisfy me. Every song I write don't satisfy me. And I'd like to be able to sing a while longer than I'm probably going to be able to, just so I can get some of this stuff done .

The biggest thing, and I know it'll never happen, is to feel better about getting older. And that, I can't deal with. Because I wasted a lot of years, and that makes me sad.

I would like to be able to go out with the same dignity that I lived with, and I'm not sure I've got it in me…

Writer's Note: At this point, I break in and say, “Oh, I hope you do. And if you don't, there's always that niece with the truck, who said she'd come up here and fetch you back to West Virginia.”

“She didn't say fetch, though,” Miss Hazel sets me straight. “She said, 'We gonna come and git you! Gonna git you and haul you back to West Virginia!' Well, you better ask me before you do any haulin'.” Chuckling quietly, she drawls, “Nobody comes and gits me unless I want to be gotten. ”