“Working Girl Blues” was written by Hazel Dickens, a West Virginia-born singer and bass player who moved to Baltimore at sixteen and there met Alice Gerrard, with whom she recorded her first albums. It was recorded for Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard (Rounder 0054, 1976) at House of Music in West Orange, New Jersey, with Gerrard on guitar, Kenny Kosek on fiddle, Stacy Phillips on dobro, Roger Mason on bass and Richard Crooks on drums. Dickens sings the verses and, with Gerrard singing the lead, takes the tenor part on the choruses.
The lyric is a wage-worker’s complaint, opening on a Monday morning with the worn-out shoes she wears to work. She is tired of giving her life and her pay to someone else while employers grow rich on the profits, and she cannot afford a new pair of shoes. Her boss keeps promising a raise, and she wonders how long she will wait for it.
Dickens later gave her 2008 biography, written with Bill C. Malone and published by the University of Illinois Press, the title Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens.
