Profile of Hazel Dickens, Matriarch of American Country & Labour Music

This woman is an American national treasure. We're so lucky she's still alive and playing today, even at the age of 73.

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Song appreciation: Hazel Dickens's "Won't You Come and Sing For Me?" by Jim and Jennie & the Pinetops, 1999

You know that feeling that you get when you start to cry? When for a moment your whole being seems stopped up, hot and aching, and you panic deep inside, feeling like it’ll poison you? Then your eyes get hot and the pain edges its way up your throat and into your face, and slowly you open up and some of the pain comes out. However much you hurt inside, that little bit that would have overwhelmed you slips free and escapes. You let it out and though you can’t cure yourself of the pain, but you let a little bit go and it’s gone. That’s what this song sounds like to me.