Backalleyblues

As tough as the life of a professional musician must have been in the '30s, the plight of a typical Carolina millworker was a whole lot worse. This was the background that Dorsey and Howard Dixon were born into, as they and their family all worked in the mills of Darlington, Lancaster, and Greenville, SC, as well as East Rockingham, NC. Dorsey was born October 5, 1897, and his brother on June 9, 1903. Music was an outlet from the long hours, lousy pay, and miserable factory conditions, with the workers often picked on by their bosses for being so-called hillbillies, and persecuted by local police for being so-called communists. Perhaps a career in country music was inevitable for hillbilly communists and it surely must have seemed like it would be more rewarding. At any rate, Dorsey picked up guitar at 14 and switched to fiddle later. When his little brother also figured out chords on the guitar, the two put together a fiddle-guitar duo, although the older brother continued practicing guitar. The most importa