Kelsey Waldon Covers Hazel Dickens' “Busted” | CONTRARY WESTERN

“This song, I guess I gotta do it now ‘cause I’m talking about it,” Kelsey Waldon said just after telling us about the inspiration she’s drawn from Hazel Dickens over the years—from Dickens’ songs and the causes she championed through her songs—and just before sharing a stunning performance of “Busted” with us.

“Busted,” which was written by Harlan Howard and over the years recorded by artists including Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Patty Loveless, and Dickens, has a sense of the timeless-timely, not unlike the stories Kelsey has in her own songs and in her understanding of the artists who seem to be able to slow down time to help us make sense of things—as with Hazel Dickens and her songs that speak to “women working in the coal mine and their rights, and the union, and workers’ rights” at a time when no one would have really been talking about them in the way Dickens wrote them into songs.

“Hazel has always been a huge inspiration to me,” Kelsey said during our time with her in her living room about a half an hour outside of Nashville—and Kelsey continues to be a huge inspiration to us as we continue to get after the gold here in Nashville. Whether it is in starting to tour more this year or it was in staying productive at the start of the pandemic by recording an EP of cover songs, “They’ll Never Keep Us Down,” the throughline through everything Kelsey puts together is in the sense she makes of things.

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CREDITS

Videographers: Emma Delevante & James Southard
Editor: Sam Farahmand
Mixed by Luke Wiget
Directed & Produced by Contrary Western in Nashville, Tennessee