Fans of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard won’t want to miss Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, 1965-1969 which is out September 21 on Free Dirt Records. The pure joy that Hazel and Alice found playing together is perfectly captured on the album and all but one of the songs have never before been commercially released by the duo. Listen to them performing This Little Light of Mine below.
‘This Little Light of Mine’ is a traditional song, but our main source for this song was the Louvin Brothers. —Alice
Although This Little Light of Mine was originally written as a gospel hymn, it became a popular Freedom Song at protest rallies and gatherings during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. In fact, activist Fannie Lou Hamer was known to lead this song at meetings. As Bernice Johnson Reagon points out, the songs of the Civil Rights Movement were drawn from the wealth of African-American traditional songs, based in the church and often sung in a congregational style. The Louvin Brothers recorded the song in 1957 for their first gospel music album, Nearer My God to Thee, for Capitol Records. The Louvin Brothers setting (echoed by Hazel and Alice) features the traditional style of bluegrass gospel music, with the sped-up call and response antiphony of the lead and tenor vocals.
Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, 1965-1969 is out on 21 September 2018
Order via the Free Dirt Website: https://freedirt.net/collections/all/products/hazel-dickens-alice-gerrard-sing-me-back-home-the-dc-tapes-1965-1969
Read more in our earlier article here.
Photo Credit: Betsy Siggins