Search - Dorsey Dixon :: Babies in the Mill

With songs about life's hard truths and simple pleasures, it's no wonder that country music thrived during the Depression. An unheralded veteran of that era, Dixon offers haunting and brutally honest music that bypasses the brain and pierces your very soul. Dismal laments of life in the textile mills accompany parlor songs about truckers, burglars, and childhood innocence. Most of the album stems from 1962, when a 65-year-old Dixon was recorded in his hometown of East Rockingham, North Carolina. His grizzled voice has the unrefined authenticity of a man who was a mill worker first and musician second. His jagged, idiosyncratic fingerpicking lends character to his originals and reworked sacred and secular traditionals. One original, "Wreck on the Highway," became a classic in Roy Acuff's hands. Sister Nancy, who began mill work at the age of 8, contributes rough-edged solo versions of 19th-century mill songs, which Dorsey then reprises with guitar. The highpoints, however, are three cuts Dorsey recorded with brother Howard in the 1930s, which feature the yodeling, intimate harmonies, and spare guitar/steel guitar arrangements of the classic brother-duo format. --Marc Greilsamer