“Coal Miner’s Blues” is a traditional song from the coal camps of southwest Virginia. The Carter Family recorded it in 1938; A.P. Carter said he had learned it from miners who worked the Wise County coal mines.
The song voices the hard life of the mines. It speaks of the dust, the danger, and the worry that hang over a miner and his family, giving the blues of the title a specific, lived weight.
The song was a fitting choice for Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, who sang often of working people and of Appalachia.
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