Hard Hitting Songs For Hard Hit People by Hazel Dickens, released in 1980, is one of the most uncompromising political records in the bluegrass and old-time tradition. Drawing its title from the Lomax and Guthrie anthology, the album collects Dickens's original compositions alongside traditional labor and mining songs that speak directly to the lives of working-class Appalachian people. Tracks like "Aragon Mill," "Out Among the Stars," "Scraps From Your Table," and "West Virginia My Home" carry the weight of personal and communal experience — Dickens grew up in a West Virginia coal family and never sentimentalized that background. Her voice, raw and unadorned, carries a moral authority that no amount of studio polish could improve. The album stands alongside the recordings she made with Alice Gerrard as a cornerstone of socially engaged mountain music.
Tracklist
- 1 Busted 2:33
- 2 Aragon Mill Source Recording 3:04
- 3 Old Calloused Hands 3:48
- 4 Scraps From Your Table Source Recording 2:54
- 5 Out Among the Stars Source Recording 3:31
- 6 West Virginia My Home Source Recording 4:32
- 7 Tomorrow's Already Lost 3:45
- 8 Lonesome Pine Special 3:32
- 9 Lost Patterns 4:10
- 10 Beautiful Hills Of Galilee 4:57
- 11 Rocking Chair Blues 4:20
- 12 They'll Never Keep Us Down 2:46
