Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard - Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, 1965-1969 (2018)

Archive release. Beloved bluegrass trailblazers Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard are revered as pioneers of the form, who challenged the norm at a time when bluegrass remained largely in the purview of men. Nowhere is this clearer than on a set of newly unearthed recordings, Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, 1965-1969. Sourced from Alice's private archive and digitized with help from the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC Chapel Hill, the recordings invite us in to witness the creative process of these towering figures-just two voices and a handful of instruments working out arrangements at home. Across 19 tracks the duo sings the classic country of The Carter Family, The Louvin Brothers, and Jimmie Rodgers; contemporary hits of the 1960s penned by Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard; and barn-burning traditional standards that blur the line between old-time and early bluegrass. Sing Me Back Home is a raw, unfiltered listen to Hazel and Alice at the height of their collaborative energy.