Album
Musicians
“My Heart’s Own Love” was written by Hazel Dickens, the West Virginia-born singer and songwriter whose body of work — from her duo records with Alice Gerrard through her solo albums on Rounder — sits at the center of post-war bluegrass and old-time songwriting. The piece is a tender love song, gentler in tone than the labor and hard-times material Dickens is best known for, but cut from the same plainspoken cloth.
The first commercial recording was by Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum on their 2004 duo album Guest House (Hightone). Lewis — fiddler, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and one of the most respected figures in modern bluegrass — and mandolinist Rozum brought the song into the bluegrass repertoire in the warm, harmony-led, song-centered style that defines their work together.
The song was taken up by a younger generation soon after: a notable version is by Della Mae, the acclaimed all-women string band, who recorded it for their 2011 album I Built This Heart. Their reading keeps the song’s quiet character while drawing it firmly into the contemporary bluegrass conversation.
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