Pieces of My Heart (Copper Creek CCCD-0134, 1994) is Alice Gerrard's debut solo album — her first recording under her own name after decades of celebrated collaborations, most famously the partnership with Hazel Dickens that produced some of the most politically engaged and musically authentic recordings in the folk and old-time tradition. Recorded in Carrboro, North Carolina, the album features Jim Watson, Jody Stecher, and Kate Brislin among its contributors in a program of six originals and eight carefully chosen covers. The solo format allows Gerrard's singing — raw, uncompromising, and shaped by deep immersion in Appalachian and working-class musical traditions — to stand without the framing of a duo or ensemble context. The album is a late-career statement that demonstrates the full range of her artistic voice, separate at last from the collaborations through which she had become known.
Tracklist
- 1 Ruben (and Ruby) 3:15
- 2 Belle of the Ball 2:59
- 3 Jeweled Heart 2:39
- 4 Light At the River 3:59
- 5 Agate Hill 4:22
- 6 Dying Ranger 3:15
- 7 Rocky Road Blues alt version 2:33
- 8 Flame in My Heart 2:58
- 9 There Ain’t No Ash Will Burn alt version 4:26
- 10 Whole Lot of Used to Be 2:51
- 11 Love's Not the Answer Sometimes 2:57
- 12 Names 3:17
- 13 Life's Other Side Coming Down 4:01
- 14 When I Grow Too Old to Dream 2:13
