About the Band

In the summer of 2020, a group of musicians met in an open-air pavilion in a small town along the banks of the Mississippi. The musicians represented a variety of musical influences and training—jazz, blues, country, classical and bluegrass—that would all come together over a period of five months. They brought in a poet to write and record four original poems for the project, providing new connections for the old-time music and the lyrics of Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard. 

The Zoom picture of Coulee Creek is symbolic of our effort to produce a CD/album during a worldwide pandemic. The majority of musicians had only limited old-time music background, so the process of recording Matriarch Song & Verse required a high degree of dedication and self-motivation. Despite this and the pandemic, the project was recorded over five months. In the first week of August, the thirteen songs and the key in which they were to be performed were announced. Three songs were recorded each month. Since none of the songs had a score, the artists had to agree on which YouTube video to study. This process was normally completed by the first week of each month. The third weekend of each month was dedicated to separate instrumental and vocal practice sessions, all limited to no more than four people. The fourth weekend of each month, our lead instrumentalist, Tom Baker, would lay down both the bass and guitar tracks for the upcoming weekend’s recording session. One at a time, artists would enter the studio and lay down their tracks, starting with the vocal and ending with the banjo. The poet's four poems and background sounds were the final pieces of this bluegrass oratorio. We hope all can enjoy the music of Alice and Hazel as presented by the band Coulee Creek.

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About

Dickens & Gerrard

Hazel Dickens was an American bluegrass singer, musician, songwriter, and activist whose music was combined her high, lonesome singing with provocative pro-union, feminist songs. Her work was highlighted in films such as Harlan County USA and John Sayles’s Matewan. Alice Gerrard is a bluegrass singer and musician who has recorded four solo albums and six with Hazel Dickens. They were the first women to record a bluegrass album and their revolutionary singing partnership inspired future women musicians ranging from the Judds to Le Tigre.