Ed Haley
Forked Deer
Volume 1
Song Titles
Disc 1
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Disc 2
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Liner Notes
These performances come from one-of-a-kind home disc recordings made, for the most part, by Ed Haley's son, Ralph, in 1946 and 1947. Fourteen of these titles were issued by Rounder Records on LP in 1975.
Great improvements have occurred in mastering technology since the Rounder LP of twenty years ago and we have done all we can to get the best transfers possible. However, the original discs have also experienced some deterioration in the intervening time due to their poor quality and over-usage.
We have judicially used modern noise removal systems and have adjusted the speed of the recordings for two different anomalies: the relative pitch and consistency of pitch for each disc. Unfortunately, since much of the musical material is in the same frequency range as the surface noise, this CD maybe noisier in spots than some listeners find acceptable. If you find this annoying, we suggest that you turn your treble control to a lower setting so as to decrease the surface noise considerably.
Annadeene Fraley brought the Haley discs to the attention of Guthrie T. Meade and Mark Wilson in late 1972. With assistance of Rounder Records, they arranged for Lawrence Haley to take the discs to Washington to be copied at the Library of Congress. Meade and Wilson issued a selection of these on Rounder 1010,from which the following notes are extracted:
James Edward Haley was born in 1883 on Hart's Creek in Logan County, West Virginia. Although little is known about his childhood,it is certain that it contained its full measure of hardships and difficulties. He was raised by his aunt Liza. An attack of measles when he was three left him completely blind. Because of their remote rural location, he received no formal schooling. Ed once told Cecil Williamson that on occasion food was so scarce that his dinner would consist of nothing but a bunch of wild onions washed in a nearby stream.
A neighbor made him a cornstalk fiddle for a toy, but Ed soon graduated to a full sized violin. In his basic approach to the instrument, he followed the old-time fiddlers of his vicinity. Instead of resting the fiddle under his chin in the manner of a trained violinist or a modern country fiddler, Ed held it against his upper arm and chest, supported solely by his left hand. This method of holding a violin, typical of older Appalachian players, is especially conducive to a strong rhythmic pulse suitable for dance music but at the same time it discriminates against the use of vibrato, higher positions, and similar advanced violin techniques. One can only marvel at the manner in which Haley surmounted these difficulties. His frequent use of the higher registers was always flawless and he played with a greater tonal accuracy than is usually achieved by fiddlers following more conventional techniques. Moreover, although Haley reportedly did not like the use of vibrato (which he called "trembling") in hoe downs, he showed perfect control of the technique in his waltzes and other slow pieces.
Holding the fiddle against his chest allowed Haley to develop an unusual skill, apparently unique to him and a few of his followers. Instead of moving his bow, Ed would often rock the violin body underneath the bow as he played. This device allowed him to execute many difficult transitions from low to high strings as well as facilitating his particular approach to syncopation. Haley's exceptional sense of timing probably constitutes the single most distinctive feature of his playing. One hears strong echoes of his approach in Clark Kessinger's music, although in our opinion Kessinger never achieved the control evidenced in a Haley masterpiece like CHERRY RIVER RAG.
Another distinctive feature of Haley's playing was the broad range of styles with which he was familiar. One hears old-fashioned cross-tuned pieces like LOST INDIAN together with sophisticated rags and schottisches like DONE GONE and PARKERSBURG LANDING. Some of this variety may be a result of the comparatively wide region in which Ed Haley played. He travelled quite extensively in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky ranging north to Parkersburg, east to White Sulphur Springs and south to Harlan County. (It is surprising, however, that he seldom ventured very far west. He does not seem to have been remembered around Winchester, for example, whereas his fellow Ashland fiddler, J. W. Day, was a frequent visitor in the area.) Within this region, there existed a large variety of local styles and Ed seems to have adapted his playing to the preferences of each locale. Informants from different regions offer surprisingly different responses as to what were "Ed Haley's tunes." Doc White of Ivydale cites West Virginian tunes like PIGEON ON THE GATEPOST and GIRL WITH THE BLUE DRESS ON. Alva Greene of Elliot County remembers LADIES ON THE STEAMBOAT and NUMBER NINE. Lynn Davis and Molly O'Day recall strange titles such as BLUEGRASS MEADOWS and ANNIE HAYES. Around Portsmouth, Ohio, where the fiddle style is a mixture of northern and southern influences, Ed is remembered for BOSTONY and HARD UP BIG CANOY. We currently do not possess recordings of Ed Haley playing any of these tunes or even a recording of his signature tune, BLACKBERRY BLOSSOM - the one tune remembered by all of our informants. To all available indications, the hundred odd recordings extant provide but a small sample of the full extent of his repertory.
Sometime before the First World War, Ed met his wife, Martha Ella, from Morehead, Kentucky. She was also blind but, unlike Ed, had been educated as a piano teacher at the Louisville School for the Blind. Ed's fame as a fiddler had already been well established and some local matchmaker undoubtedly took her to hear this remarkable young musician. They married in 1914 and settled in Ashland, which was to be their homebase for the rest of their lives. Mrs. Haley learned to accompany Ed on the mandolin and the two traveled widely together. Both Haleys were strongly independent of outside assistance and it was reportedly a moving sight to watch these two self-reliant people lead each other to an appointed destination. Their schedules would be determined by the pattern of county fairs and court days in the area since they would try to be present at any large gathering of people. In slack times, they would play to incoming arrivals in Ashland or take day trips to Portsmouth or Charleston. Once or twice a year Ed returned to Logan County for an extended stay since he kept many friends in the area and was always assured of a place to stay.
It was an event of major importance when the Haleys came to visit an isolated mountain town. Someone would invariably offer them lodging and to take them where they needed to play. Virtually every evening a dance would be scheduled at someone's house. Ed had great endurance and would often play continuously all night, without even pausing between sets. If someone gave him a dollar to play a special tune, he might play it for ten minutes or more. Before the depression, Ed made as much as twenty dollars a day. Tips grew leaner as times got harder but the Haleys managed to put all six children through school and to maintain a stable home in Ashland.
Ed Haley was known for his irascible moods and anyone who did not properly appreciate music was liable to his scorn. In the thirties, he occasionally went to fiddle contests to earn money. At several of these events, he ran into "Natchez the Indian," a personification of modern tendencies towards show fiddling. Although there is some question whether Natchez was a true Indian or not, he dressed in beaded buckskins and kept his hair very long. When he played one of his specialties, such as BUCKIN' MULE, the animation of his coiffure and the tassels on his buckskins was of greater interest than the quality of his music. One defeat at his hands convinced Ed never go near another contest in which Natchez was to appear. Another fiddler he didn't care for was Arthur Smith. Ed liked to listen to the radio, preferring soap operas and mystery chillers, but also in order to hear new fiddle tunes. A good piece would cause him to slap his leg with excitement but an Arthur Smith record would send him into an outrage, probably because of Smith's notoriously uncertain sense of pitch. Cecil Williamson remembers being severely lectured for attempting to play like "that fellow Smith." On the other hand, Ed was quite generous to the fiddlers he admired, such as Clayton McMichen and Clark Kessinger (although he once complained that Kessinger always shied away from playing in front of him). Ed would often play special requests for people who loved fiddling but had no money to pay for it. Wilson Douglas vividly remembers being so treated as a boy. One of Ed's lifelong friends was an Ivydale physician named Laury Hicks. Shortly before he died, Hicks requested that he be able to hear Ed Haley one more time, Ed arrived too late and it is said that he played over Laury's grave for hours into the night.
In regard to his own fiddling, Haley was not particularly vain, although he was aware that he could put "slurs and insults" into a tune in a manner that set him apart from all other fiddlers. "I like to flavor up a tune," he told Cecil Williamson, "so that nobody in the world could tell what I'm playing." And he sometimes wished that "someone might pattern after me a little when I'm dead."
Although relatively few musicians from the Ashland area were recorded on 78s, it seems likely that Haley's temperament alone kept him from making commercial recordings. His many friends urged him to make records but Ed was always afraid that the companies would take advantage of a blind man. This suspicion also kept him from the folklorists recording in Ashland. It is said that Haley was Jean Thomas' original candidate to be "Jilson Setters" rather than J. W. Day (whose wife Rosie was Laury Hicks' sister and a close friend of the Haley family). Ed would have no part in such humbug, so his recognition in folklore books is limited to a passing mention in Ballad Makin' in Kentucky and a series of poems about "Blind Fraley" in Jesse Stuart's The Man with the Bull Tongue Plow.
Despite this neglect, it is clear that Ed Haley's influence reached an incredibly wide variety of musicians. Besides some of the obvious fiddlers mentioned above, we have been informed that such unlikely figures as Dick Burnett, Blind James Howard and Fiddlin' Powers all learned tunes from him. The late "Georgia Slim" Rutland allegedly spent over a year in Ashland listening to Ed Haley play.
By the end of the Second World War, Ed had slowed down quite a bit, and rarely played in public after 1946 (when these recordings were made). Mrs. Haley purchased a newsstand in Cincinnati, which she ran on weekends, whereas Ed had been traveling with a blind guitarist, Bill Bowler. Ed's heart was beginning to trouble him and to cause a numbness in his arms, although his playing seems unaffected on these recordings. He was also drawing a small pension of sixteen dollars a month from the government, so he felt there was less need to work so hard any more. Around 1948, Bill Bowler invited him to the opening of a shoe store in Ironton. Ed had not played in public for a while and didn't feel like going, but Larry Haley encouraged his dad to play and drove him over to the opening. Someone there must have angered Ed because he practically beat Larry home from Ironton.
Ed continued to play around the house and for friends. He died peacefully of a heart attack during an afternoon nap on February 4, 1951. Mrs. Haley passed away in 1954.
The present recordings were made by Ralph Haley who also plays guitar on several selections. Ralph had served in the Signal Corps during the war and used a home disc-cutting machine of the Wilcox-Gay type. After Ralph's death in the late forties, the collection of discs were evenly divided among the five remaining children. It is estimated that the 106 sides presently accounted for represent approximately one third of the original total. Most of these records were preserved by Lawrence Haley of Ashland, who kindly gave us permission to issue them here.
And thus was most of the original liner notes for Parkersburg Landing by Mark Wilson and Gus Meade. If it hadn't been for Annadene Fraley introducing us to Lawrence and Pat Haley in our search for their father, Ed Haley, none of our own research would have been possible. We think that Ed was the most important old-time fiddler to come out of the eastern Kentucky - western West Virginia area between the turn of the century and the 1940s. You would have had to hear him on a street corner or on a court house square or a stock sale for he didn't make commercial records or play on the radio. He and his wife (who played with him) were blind and didn't want anyone to take advantage of them. This reputation was legendary and not unlike that of Buddy Bolden in Dixieland jazz, Robert Johnson in the blues, or Arnold Shultz, the great Kentucky guitar player.
| Ed could be considered the grandfather of modern contest fiddling for this reason, as well as because of his influence on one of Benny Thomasson's idols, Clark Kessinger. Ed and his wife played at fairs, schools, and courthouses as far west as Lexington, KY, and Cincinnati, OH; as far north as Akron, OH; as far south as Abingdon, VA; and as far east as Greenbrier County, WV. His daughter, Mona remembered tremendous crowds full of people who danced to his music. The fiddling language Ed played/speaks is, to old time fiddlers, highly sophisticated. His tunes are played with note choices of the highest order, with the old untempered intonation. The hand written script of the bow is so elegant and is deeply rooted in the Scotch Irish experience. Until the year 1973, fiddle tune collectors just had to take the word of a lot of old-timers like J. P. Fraley, Skeets Williamson, Clark Kessinger, and Wilson Douglas as to how good he was. Then Mark Wilson and Guthrie Meade, two eminent scholars of old-time fiddling, tracked down Ed's son Lawrence in Ashland, Kentucky and found that the family had home discs all these years. Mark and Gus issued fourteen of them on the Rounder album called Parkersburg Landing which we had bought and almost wore out listening to Ed play FORKED DEER and DUNBAR. We read and re-read these liner notes and became fascinated with Ed Haley's story. We got in touch with Charles Wolfe who put us in touch with Gus Meade who played us some more of the recordings. Then we got in touch with J. P. Fraley and he invited us up to play the fiddle and talk about Ed. Ed never told his family about his early life. So after meeting Lawrence Haley and the two of us visiting Ed's birthplace, on Harts Creek in Logan County, WV, we found out things Lawrence, even, didn't know and we became obsessed with his story. |  Lawrence Haley and his father's fiddle. |
His father, Thomas Milton Haley and his friend, Greenville McCoy, both musicians, were killed at the mouth of Green Shoals in 1889 as a result of an incident which many believe was the beginning of mob violence on Big Harts. Ed was about four years old and probably remembered his father's fiddling. He was subsequently raised by his Uncle Peter and Aunt Liza Mullins and maternal grandparents on Hart's Creek. Then at the urging of fellow musician Johnny Hager, Haley traveled widely throughout central and southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, southeastern Ohio. He became aquainted with such colorful characters as Doctor Laury Hicks, Doctor H. H. Holbrook, Doc White, and countless others whose descendants have told us a great deal about Ed's life and music. He "wrote" tunes, sang with the fiddle and very often his whole family traveled with him. If you gave him as much as a quarter he might play a tune for you for 10 - 15 minutes. He was magnificent at improvising on a tune and creating new parts (usually three or more). He was said to know several thousand tunes and had different repertories and styles depending on what part of the country he was in. He knew so many people that he always had a place to stay and was always clean and neat in his appearance. He visited with lots of other fiddlers in his travels and had an amazing memory for tunes. His bowing was intricate and we spent much time with his children trying to find clues about Ed's technique repertoire. In addition, we prowled the dark hollers of Harts Creek searching for Ed's past. What we found we expect to cover in a forthcoming book we are co-writing with Brandon Kirk, a Harts native and expert on genealogy and family history. Lawrence loaned us the records and Bruce Nemerov, at the Center For Popular Culture, dubbed all the records and thus we had much better copies and safeties. Ed's son Lawrence passed away in February of 1995 and we lost one of our best friends. Steve and David Haley put us in charge of the discs and we decided to entrust them to Bob Carlin who along with Mike Casey at the University of North Carolina, David Glasser and Lea Anne Sonenstein at Airshow in Washington, DC did a state of the art job cleaning them up.
The original recordings were made in 1946 on a Wilcox-Gay type recorder belonging to Ralph Haley, the oldest son (who plays guitar on a lot of them), around a dining room table on 17th Street in Ashland, Kentucky. Ella Haley, Ed's wife, played the mandolin on most of the record although Mona, their daughter and youngest child, played mandolin on some of them.
Ed passed away peacefully at home in 1951 and Ella died in 1954 while visiting in Cleveland, OH.
Lawrence was at home one day after the original Rounder album came out and a man knocked on his door and said he had some discs of Ed's music he would trade for one of the Parkersburg Landing albums. Lawrence agreed and we got good recordings of GARFIELD'S BLACKBERRY BLOSSOM, INDIAN ATE THE WOODCHUCK, BLUEGRASS MEADOWS, POPLAR BLUFF and OX IN THE MUD. We also tracked down and got some records from Dr. Holbrook in Ashland that just weren't clear enough to use and after you hear some of what we did use, you'll realize just how bad they are. We did transcribe them on paper and hope to play them on a forthcoming CD, Dave at Airshow likes to kid that these records were made in a cellophane factory but, after you've heard them a few times, you won't notice the noise. A lot of the noise had to stay in so as to maintain technique and note clarity, especially in regard to the bowing. This music creates images which will prove to be unforgettable.
This collection of Haley's tunes should finally place his unique fiddling in its right perspective and distance him from his contemporaries. He certainly didn't play within his peer group -- that could be considered mediocre. Haley instead stretched the boundaries of what fiddling meant in his time much like Earl Scruggs, Benny Martin, and Bill Monroe -- the unusual people out on the end -- have done with their instruments in our era.
Disc 1
1. Soundbite
Roxie Mullins was 86 in October of 1991, when she told us how Ed lost his eyesight. She was a niece to John Hager, the banjo player in the early photo of ED on the cover of this CD.
2. FORKED DEER
G. P. Knauff 1839 calls it FORKED DEER. From a manuscript collection in the Library of Congress, a David R. Hamblen (1809 - 1893) of Lee County, VA and later Brown County, IN (1857) played this and called it FORKED EAR referring, we reckon, to the knotching of the ear for the purposes of livestock identification. George H. Coes album of music publishes this tune as FORKEDAIR JIG in 1876. Somewhere we've seen it as FORKY DAIR and Dan Emmett called it FORK ADAIR. It's also called BRAGGS RETREAT. There is a Forked Deer River flowing into the Mississippi River just above Ashport, on Lauderdale Country in West Tennessee. Pat Sky has this great theory that the title, FORKED AIR originally meant a "forked air" or "crooked melody." Ed plays five parts as did some of his peers like Bill Day. This recording is our favorite rendition of this piece. The "fine" strain of FORKED DEER is like an old Scotch-Irish tune called RACHAEL RAE, enough we believe to claim ancestry of a sort. The 2nd strain of the Hamblen does resemble the RACHAEL RAE 2nd strain. RACHAEL RAE is also called THE MOVING DOGS and, in O'Neil's, the coarse part of FORKED DEER; but as Mark Wilson points out, it just doesn't have that "A" tonality. A Scots composer named Joseph Lowe is supposed to have composed RACHAEL RAE in 1815.
3. IDA RED
"Bout the same as CRIPPLE CREEK," as they used to say. CRIPPLE CREEK has been
called the world's best banjo tune. Ed plays a third part that goes to the "four chord" ('C' in this case). This the only time we've ever heard it in this tuning but it works as natural as if we'd been hearing it that way for years. It shows up on Steven Green's "Berea Lists" in 1915 (of course, it's much older than that) and has been recorded by everyone from Fiddlin' Cowan Powers in 1924 to Roy Acuff in 1939. Ed plays it in 'G' and plays beautiful figure eight licks on the coarse part. He also sounds like he's talking to you on part, of this ("slurs and insults").
4. INDIAN ATE THE WOODCHUCK
This title has been passed around to a lot of melodies. A melody that is No. 183 in Bayard has a resemblance to the 2nd strain of Ed's melody of the same name. We gave a tape of this to Bruce Molsky and he liked the tune so much that he made a tape of nothing but it to listen to in the car on the way to work. This second strain is also called SUCH A GETTIN' UPSTAIRS and THE FIFE HUNT according to Bayard. The first strain of Ed's version here is also cousin to SMITH'S REEL.
5. BRUSHY RUN
Wilson Douglas says that the Carpenter family made this tune during the Civil War and named it for a little stream near Widen, WV in Clay County.
6. INDIAN NATION
The late Gus Meade calls this a variation on the old Kentucky tune NIGGER INCH ALONG and also said it was like GOIN' TO LONDON from Noah Beavers. Doc Roberts called it JOHNNY INCHIN' ALONG. There is a faint hint of COTTON EYED JOE and
POOR LITTLE DARLIN (WOLVES A-HOWLIN') here. Alva Greene played this as INDIAN SQUAW. Art Stamper calls it TERRY FORK OF BALL because of the "N" word. Coarse section also smacks of Snake Chapman's PAT HIM ON THE BACK. Dorothy Scarborough,in NEGRO FOLK SONGS, cites a Negro spiritual in East Waco, Texas with the words "Keep a-inching along like a poor inch worm, Jesus will come bye and bye." Luther Strong and W H. Stepp both play this melody (more or less) and call it by the "N" name. It's interesting to note that Mona, Ed's daughter, says Ed was color-blind towards Afro-Americans.
7. HUMPHREY'S JIG
Dr. Humphrey's Jig is a version of BOB OF FETTERCAIRN which is found in Robert Burns' Scots Musical Museum. Mark Wilson says that in Shetland, it's called KNACK AND KNOCK IT CORN. This tune was very popular at one time in northeast Kentucky. Bill Day and George Hawkins played it. Alfred Bailey said Kentucky fiddler Tom York learned it from someone named Hiram Humphreys. See Taditional Fiddle Music of Kentucky Volume 1 (Rounder CD 0376).
8. GREEN MOUNTAIN POLKA
The bare outline of this melody by this name was recorded by the Blue Ridge Highballers in 1926. We hear Ed's melody as a cousin to his STONEWALL JACKSON (see Vol. 2, cut 18) and a distant relative to two tunes we grew up with in Missouri called RAGGED BILL and FIDDLERS HORNPIPE.
9. SOURWOOD MOUNTAIN
Lawrence Haley said this was not one of Ed's favorite tunes but he played the hell out of it anyway. We also found it on the "Berea Lists."
10. MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW
Lawrence always said this should have been his Dad's signature tune. "Slow air" playing is common in Scotland and Ireland but rare in the United States. Mark Wilson and Gus Meade reproduced a 1913 "song booklet" printed by Dick Burnett of Monticello, KY. Burnett was also a blind musician and said that Ed Haley was the first man in the state of Kentucky to play GARFIELD'S BLACKBERRY BLOSSOM. He said Bob Johnson of Paintsville, KY learned it from Ed and he learned it from Bob; but we're getting off the subject. Incidentally Emery Arthur and the Stanley Brothers have recorded MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW.
11. LOVE SOMEBODY
We always called this LEAD OUT. Tommy Jackson recorded it with this title. Bayard No. 323 calls it MY LOVE SHE'S BUT A LASSIE YET. He says the first printing of this air was in "Bremner's Scots Reels Of 1757" as MISS FARQUHARSON'S REEL. Lyman Enlow calls it TEN NIGHTS IN A BARROOM. Bob Carlin calls it TOO YOUNG TO MARRY.
12. DORA DEAN
Written by Bert Williams and published in 1896 with the subtitle THE HOTTEST THING YOU EVER SEEN, it was for a while a popular piano "show off" piece according to Mark Wilson. It's almost I DON'T LOVE NOBODY in 'F'. I DON'T LOVE NOBODY is almost GOODBYE OLD PAL which Major Franklin is supposed to have sold to Bill Monroe - according to Benny Martin.
13. Soundbite No. 8
Roxie Mullins gives us a story Ed used to tell on himself.
14. BLUEGRASS MEADOWS
Resembles a tune played by Ed's one time neighbor in Ashland. Bill (Jilson Setters) Day called THE NIGGERS WEDDING.
15. CACKLIN' HEN
This tune was one of Ed's specialties which he played in contests. Once, someone got up and played this before him in a contest at the old Alphont Theatre in Ashland in one of those affairs where you couldn't repeat a tune. Ed told the judges he was going to play LITTLE BROWN PULLET -- "she cackles too" -- and won the contest. Lawrence said his Dad "could make it sound like a cacklin' hen if you've ever heard one lay an egg. He could make it sound like a hen just comin' off the nest."
16. FLOP EARED MULE
Samuel Bayard (No. 164) says he doesn't think this tune is very old, maybe early 19th century. He has it called HELL OVER THE MOUNTAIN, HELL AMONG THE SLAVISH and OLD SCHOTTISCHE. Tunes that imitate things always seem to go over well. It is similar to KARO and Dorothy Horstman hears THE JOLLY BLACKSMITH. Len Isom plays it on a John Harrod tape and calls it GRAPEVINE TWIST. Modern players play this in 'D' whereas the old timers play it in 'G'.
17. SALT RIVER
This is from a family of tunes widespread in Scottish and Irish tradition but which Bayard indicates to be no older than the 18th century. The oldest ancestor may be CARRON'S REEL, according to Francis O'Neill which soon enough became the melody of a poem by the Rev Mr. John Skinner called THE EWE WITH THE CROOKED HORN - referring to a whiskey still with its spiral apparatus. Bayard puts PADDY ON THE TURNPIKE, MOLLY McGUIRE, FLOWERS OF LIMERICK, THE MILLS ARE GRINDING, PADDY ON THE HANDCAR, DOWN THE HILL and THE BUMMER'S REEL in this clan. This tune is played in the Texas contests and Bill Keith recorded it on the banjo with Bill Monroe. Right in the beginning Ed throws in a "groan" on the fiddle, a lick we usually associate with Major Franklin but suspect is much older than both of them. Notice how in the 2nd strain Ed will set you up with simpler phrases and then really fill in all the cracks and crannys the second time through rather than 2 bars, 2 bars then 4 bars like he does in other parts of the tune. Again another example of learning the 'G' tonality in the melody line and leaving it out of the rhythm section. (see BRUSHY FORK OF JOHN'S CREEK).
18. BROWNLOW'S DREAM
Roxie Mullins said this was the last tune Milt Haley (Ed's dad) played before he was killed by a mob at the mouth of Green Shoals in 1889. It's basically OLD JIMMY JOHNSON BRING YOUR JUG AROUND THE HILL (if you can't bring the jug bring the whole damn still. If you can't bring the jug bring a ten dollar bill). It's also called JOHN BROWN'S DREAM and STILL HOUSE BRANCH. John Harrod and W. H. Stepp say it's really "The old hen she cackled, she cackled in the lot and the next time she cackled, she cackled in the pot." He says it's also called CHRISTMAS CALICO around Mt. Sterling, KY.
Disc 2
1. Soundbite
Roxie Mullins tells of the killing of Milt Haley (Ed's father) and Green McCoy in 1889.
2. INDIAN SQUAW
Bruce Green identified this "unnamed" tune as INDIAN SQUAW because he has recorded it from Art Stamper's daddy, Hiram. Lawrence and Mona Haley both say they never heard their Dad say "Indian Squaw" but Clyde says he did. "Two little Indians and one old squaw, sittin' on a rock in Arkansas." Ed plays the first part several times but runs it back on itself in a way I've never heard in a fiddle piece. Then when you least expect it, he hangs the little ending on it and goes on. It's what he sets you up for and I believe he keeps it up until the end of the recording so he'll be ready when the disc runs out, contrary to what he would have done at a dance or on a street corner.
3. DUNBAR
We feel certain Mr. Ed wrote this. Dunbar, WV is on the Kanawha River below Charleston and is Kessinger protege Bobby Taylor's hometown.
4. LOST INDIAN
The tune books are full of LOST INDIANs that don't sound like this one and for the most part don't sound like each other either. We've heard Texas Shorty play this where he hollered a note with the C sharp in the third strain, Howdy Forrester played us a LOST INDIAN one time that he learned from Uncle John Wills (Bob's father) that had a "hollerin'" part in it but it didn't sound like this tune (or any of the others either, for that matter). The version played by Ed Haley is like this. Byron Berline and Benny Thomasson play this one too. There's a D tune a lot of folks play that Tommy Magness recorded with Roy Acuff that gets called LOST INDIAN, but actually it's LONESOME INDIAN. Samuel Bayard says there are probably more melodies attached to this title than any other.
5. JENNY LIND
This is what we all call HEEL AND TOE POLKA but Samuel Bayard (No. 420) calls it JENNY LIND POLKA. What we always called JENNY LYNN is the closing melody on Bill Monroe's record of UNCLE PEN but then that's the bluegrass in us.... Page 35 of Winner's Collection of Music for the Violin (arranged in the first position) of 1853 has JENNY LIND almost note for note the way Ed plays it except for a 3rd part. The Lauchlin Shaw Family over in Harnett County, NC calls it SALLY WITH THE GAITERS ON. It's also called SALLY WITH THE RED DRESS ON and GIRL WITH THE BLUE DRESS ON, according to Bob Carlin.
6. CHICKEN REEL
Similar to Bayard's No. 183, INDIAN ATE A WOODCHUCK (to a different melody than the one in this collection). It may be an older Scots melody but Bayard says he has not traced it to any specific "old country" source.
7. CHERRY RIVER RAG
Cherry River is in Nicholas County, WV and Lawrence Haley felt that his Dad wrote this tune.
8. CRIPPLE CREEK
Steve Green gave us lists of tune titles collected from college students at Berea, Kentucky in 1915. Both CRIPPLE CREEK and one of its other names, BUCK CREEK GALS, show up. This tune is essentially IDA RED although both tunes have maintained some kind of separate identity over the years. Ed plays both in 'G' but most fiddlers we know play them in 'A'. He plays them in a way that makes the differences between the two stand out more than any other fiddler we've ever heard. The Kessinger Brothers called it GOIN' UP BRUSHY RUN.
9. DONE GONE
According to Mark Wilson, the Eck Robertson recording of this was greatly admired around Portsmouth, Ohio and undoubtably got into the region that way. Clark Kessinger told Gus Meade that he got it from the record and Morris Allen told Mark the same thing.
10. Soundbite
Lawrence Haley (Ed's son) talks about traveling with his parents.
11. YELLOW BARBER
Referring to the light skin color of a person of African descent practicing the tonsorial trades, this tune is also called ARTHUR BERRY. Mark Wilson says that George Hawkins played a 3rd part to it. Alfred Bailey told John Harrod it's supposedly from a calliope tune. Buddy Thomas played a slightly different version.
12. STACKER LEE
A 225 foot 3 boiler sternwheel steamboat owned by the Lee Line of Memphis, TN. There seems to be little doubt that a black roustabout named Stacker Lee really existed and some say that his mother was a chamber maid on the boat and others say he was born while his mother was a cook on the boat. The first theory may have more of a chance of being correct cause Negroes place the date of the crime, THE KILLING OF BILLY LIONS or BILLY GALION, as before the boat was built.
13. BRUSHY FORK OF JOHN'S CREEK
Commemorates Civil War battle either on Brushy Fork of John's Creek in Pike County, KY or near Old Bedstead Mountain in southern Floyd County, KY - depending on who you talk to. Reputed to be one of the last battles of the war. Hiram Stamper (Art's dad) learned a different melody (same title) from Shade Sloane. He also said that Alton Sizemore played it and called it BRUSHY FORK OF BUCKHORN. It is similar to BUNCH OF KEYS (II) page 59 in the Fiddler's Fake Book. Ed Haley's melody and especially the way Ms. Ella seconds it (1 4 5 1, all the way through) is a good example of what we think of this strong Celtic inclination to leave the weird chords in the melody and keep them out of the rhythm section. There seems to be an abundance of melodies to this title commemorating this eastern Kentucky battle in "the late unpleasantness."
14. RED APPLE RAG
Written by "Fiddlin'" Arthur Smith and recorded by him in New Orleans in January of 1935. Ed plays an old song as a 3rd part to which Mona and Lawrence both sang the following words:
"Bring it on down to my house honey,
Ain't nobody home but me.
Bring it on down to my house honey.
I need company.
A nickel's a nickel and a dime's a dime.
You show me yours and I'll show you mine.
Bring it on down to my house honey,
Ain't nobody home but me."
15. WAKE UP SUSAN
The old Celtic MASON'S APRON; Samuel Bayard also calls it HELL ON THE WABASH and HELL ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK and feels that it descends from the black-face minstrel repertory with strains of an old Irish reel called THE NIGHT WE MADE THE MATCH. Ira Ford calls it PICNIC ROMP and, in Texas, everybody -- I mean everybody -- calls it JACK OF DIAMONDS.
16. THREE FORKS OF SANDY
The late Gus Meade says the verse of this: "Come on boys let's go to Warfield, Naugatuck's gone dry" refers to Warfield, KY and Naugatuck, WV. Two saloon towns located across from each other on the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy river, this makes sense for this tune because Ed spent a lot of time around there and was related to the Muncys who owned a store in Warfield. Ferry Riley plays WARFIELD on Rounder 0376 but it is barely a skeleton of Ed's version. The tune Ed plays however does more closely resemble other versions, as this tune, we feel, was once very popular in eastern KY and western WV. Gus Meade hears a resemblance to the fine strain of HOLLOW POPLAR (we agree). Clark Kessinger plays a version we're sure he got from Ed.
17. NO CORN ON TYGART
Meaning: no alcohol to drink over on Tygart Creek, a well known water course in Eastern Kentucky, and also a river valley in WV. It will remind you of SALT CREEK. The Keibler Brothers, well-known fiddlers around Portsmouth, Ohio, supposedly played a tune called HEADWATERS OF TYGART which may have sounded like NO CORN. Bill Day played a different tune with this name. Asa Neal, a timberman originally from Lewis County, Kentucky and one of Ed's competitors around Portsmouth (as well as a damn good fiddler) plays this melody on a John Harrod tape and calls it PADDY ON THE TURNPIKE. John W.(Dick) Summers from Indiana plays it on Rounder 0194.
18. STONEWALL JACKSON
This is similar to Ed's GREEN MOUNTAIN POLKA. John Lozier calls it DUCK'S EYEBALL. It resembles Frazier Moss's DENVER BELLE and Charlie Acuff's WAIT IN
THE KITCHEN TILL THE COOK COMES IN. Curly Parker said the old time name was SWISS GALOPLANE. Clark Kessinger called it WEST VIRGINIA SPECIAL.
Thanks to:
Roy Acuff, Joe, Vilas & Wirt Adams, Billy & Fralein Adkins, Bob Adkins, Doska Adkins, Virgil Alfrey, Enslow & Bernice Baisden, Gary, Angie & Chance Barrett, Sol Bumgardner, Dave Bing, Elmer Bird, Bob Black, Robert Bolin, Mae Brumfield, Brad Leftwich & Linda Higginbotham, Fletcher Bright, Owen "Snake" Chapman, Slim Clere, Roger Cooper, Jake, Luster & Stump Dalton, Lynn Davis, Jim Day. Bob
Dingess, Harvey & Maude Dingess, Wilson Douglas, Carolyn Fraley, J. P Fraley, Larry Franklin, Eunice Ferrell, Mamie Ferrell, John Flavell, Howdy Forrester, Frank & Jane George, Matt Glaser, Gene Goforth, Steve Green, Bruce Greene, Pat & Bill Grey, Ike Hager, Adriene, Allison & Andrea Haley, Clyde Haley, David Haley, Jimmy (Jimmy & the Flats) Haley, Mona Haley, Noah Haley, Pat Hulse Haley, Patsy Cox Haley, Scott Haley, Steve & Ruth Haley, Perry Harris, John Harrod, Jamie, Connie & Emilie Hartford, Marie Hartford, Dr. Paul Holbrook, Mark Howard, Randy Howard, Roy Huskey, Jr., John Rice Irwin, Alan Jabbour, Grandpa & Ramona Jones, Tina Liza Jones, Abe Keibler, Rob Kessinger, Brandon Kirk, Lawrence & Mima Kirk, Harry, Phyllis, Nathan & Philip Kirk, Shelby Kirk, Cecil & Doran Lambert, Chilson Leech, John Lozier, Ron Lucas, Grace Marcum, Benny Martin, Maxine McClaine, Gerry Milnes, Bruce Molsky, Don Morris, Andy Mullins, Billie Mullins, Dobie Mullins, Jeronimo Mullins, Loretta Mullins, Violet Mullins, Al Murphy, Mark O'Connor, Doug Owsley, Larry Perkins & Julia LaBelle, Dustin & Sara Phillips, Ugee Hicks Postalwait, Harold Postalwait, Daisy Ross, Earl &
Louise Scruggs, Texas Shorty, Benny Sims, Benita Heath, Agnes Fae Smith, James N. Stewart, Jack Strickland, Jerry Sutphin, Bobby Taylor, Cora Teel, Brady & Alvy Thompson, Tootsie Tomblin, Charlie Walden, Curly Wellman, Henry & Iris
Williams, Mark Wilson, Dr. Charles Wolfe, Melvin Wine, Jim Wood, Jr., Jim Wood, Sr. and George H. Woolford.
In Memory Of:
Turly Adams, Dood Dalton, Annadene Fraley, Beverly Haley, Jack Haley, Lawrence Haley, Ralph Haley, Brooks Hardway, Laury Hicks, Clark Kessinger, Bob Martin, Gus Meade, Joe Mullins, Roxie Mullins, Asa Neal, Molly O'Day and Benny Thomasson.
Produced by John Hartford
Audio produced by Bob Carlin
Disc transfers by: Mike Casey and Bob Carlin,
Assisted by Cathy Mundale / Southern Folklife Collection / Academic Affairs Library / UNC - Chapel Hill
Bruce Nemerov / The Center for Popular Music / Middle Tennessee State University
Recording Laboratory / The Library of Congress/ Washington, DC
Mastered by David Glasser and Bob Carlin at Airshow, Springfield, Virginia
NoNoise™ processing by Lea Anne Sonenstein
Art Direction by John Hartford and Luanne Price Howard
Cover photograph: John Hager and Ed Haley.
Notes by John Hartford with suggestions by Brandon Kirk
All tunes by Ed Haley/John Hartford Music, BMI, except for "Forked Deer," "Humphrey's Jig," "Man of Constant Sorrow," "Dunbar," "Lost Indian," "Cherry River Rag," "Done Gone," "Stacker Lee" and "Wake Up Susan" by Ed Haley/Happy Valley Music, BMI.
RO-1131/1132
Released: 1997
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