Ed Haley
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James Edward "Ed" Haley (1883—1951) was a blind professional American fiddler.
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[edit] Biography
Ed Haley was born in 1883 on Hart's Creek in Logan County, West Virginia. His father, Thomas Milton Haley, was a well-known musician in Harts Creek. It is said that when Ed was an infant and had a fever, Milt Haley dipped the boy in ice-cold water, which is what caused Haley's blindness. [1] Other accounts put the cause of blindness down to measles.[2]
Ed grew up to be a professional fiddler who travelled widely throughout West Virginia and Kentucky. He had a huge repertoire of old-time music that included breakdowns, jigs, waltzes and show tunes, which he performed at square dances and fiddle contests and played in courthouse squares.
He later met his wife Martha Ella, who was also blind. She had received musical training at the Louisville School for the Blind and taught piano. She played mandolin as her husband's accompanist on many of his recordings. Their son Ralph recorded his mother and father's playing on a home disc-cutting machine.
Haley died of a heart attack on February 4, 1951 at home in Ashland, Kentucky.
[edit] Recognition
Haley was worried about record companies taking advantage of his blindness, and never recorded commercially. However, there were recordings made of him by his son Ralph, who later distributed the recordings to his five siblings. Eventually about a one half to a third of those recordings were released to Rounder Records. It is estimated that two thirds of his recordings are still missing, lost, destroyed or unreleased by family members.
Bluegrass and folk musician John Hartford studied and sang about Haley's life and performed his music. He learned a number of Haley's tunes and recorded them on the albums, Wild Hog in the Red Bush and Speed of the Old Long Bow: A Tribute to Ed Haley. Among the songs is "Hell Up Coal Holler", in which Hartford sings about Ed Haley's travels in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, playing on trains and smokehouses. He plays one of Haley's fiddle tunes, "Shove That Hog's Foot Further in the Bed" as as well as Haley arrangement of "Man of Constant Sorrow" on the Down from the Mountain concert. Before Hartford died, he was working on a biography of Haley.[3]
[edit] Releases
In 1975, Rounder Records released 14 vinyl LPs of Haley's work. In 1997, Rounder re-released many of these songs on two double CD sets: Forked Deer and Grey Eagle, which featured expanded annotations by John Hartford.
[edit] References
- Wilson, Mark and Meade, Guthrie T. Ed Haley: 1883-1951 - East Kentucky/West Virginia, Old-Time Fiddlers' Hall of Fame.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Park, Edwards. March 2000. A tale of fatal feuds and futile forensics, Smithsonian (retrieved on October 18, 2006).
- ^ Cray, Ed. 1998. Forked Deer Vols. 1 and 2, Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange (retrieved on October 18, 2006).
- ^ Royko, David. July 24, 1998. John Hartford follows heart to Ed Haley, Chicago Tribune (retrieved via writer's GeoCities site on October 18, 2006).
