John Hartford: Fiddle
Bob Carlin: Banjo,
Mike Compton: Mandolin
Ronnie McCoury: Guitar
Jerry McCoury: Bass

Co-Produced by John Hartford and Bob Carlin
Engineered and Mixed by Mark Howard and Hank Tilbury
Studio: Eleven-O-Three Studio, Nashville, Tennessee
Mastering by David Glasser and Bob Carlin at Airshow
Road Manager: Jerry McCoury
Concessions: Marie Hartford
Fiddle: Tambousky and Krutz
Strings: D'Addario
Derby: Roy Langenberg
Photo: Steve Gebhardt
Art Direction: John Hartford and Luanne Price Howard
Notes: John Hartford

Liner Notes

1. The Squirrel Hunters (Samuel Bayard - John Hartford Music, BMI)
From Samuel Bayard's "Dance To The Fiddle March To The Fife - No. 220." Called by many names - among them THE BELL COW and FARE THEE WELL SWEET KILLALOE.

2. Birdie (Elmer Bird - John Hartford Music, BMI)
From the 19th century song, PUT ME IN MY LITTLE BED composed in 1870 by C.A. White and Dexter Smith. It's like the state fiddle anthem of West Virginia. Clark Kessinger played it, the Tweedy Brothers played it travelling around with a piano in the back of a truck. J.P. Fraley say Ed Haley "owned" in and Elmer Bird got us playing it.
"Oh Birdie I am tired now
I do not care to hear you sing
You've sung your happy songs all day
Now put your head beneath your wing"
From P-330, Ira Ford traditional music in America. J.P.'s version can be heard on Rounder 0037.

3. Grandmammy Look At Uncle Sam (Forrester - John Hartford Music, BMI)
We've been playing this old tune for years with Gene Goforth ever since we heard Howdy Forrester play it. Wilson Douglas says Ed Haley played it and called it RUN HERE GRANNY, TAKE A LOOK AT UNCLE SAM. Clyde Forrester, Howdy's brother, sang us:
"Run here Grandmammy
look at Uncle Sam,
He's soppin' all the gravy and
eatin' all the ham"
Howdy learned it from his Uncle Bob Cates in Hickman County, Tennessee.

4. Old Virginia Reel (Amyx Stamper - Happy Valley Music, BMI)
A Harold Stamper recording of his father Amyx in the John Harrod/Gus Meade Collection, this tune, a cousin to POLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON, it was also played by John Walker's Corbin Rattlers.

5. Flannery's Dream (Ricky Skaggs - John Hartford Music, BMI)
We wish we could remember if J.P. Fraley or Ricky Skaggs told us that Flannery (a fiddler) was captured during the Revolutionary War and was under a sentence of death but the commanding officer said if he could play him a tune he hadn't heard, he would be freed. Supposedly, Flannery dreamt this tune the night before the execution. We think this could have happened during the Civil War. We learned this from a Gus Meade tape of Warner Walton.
The Flannery family was a big family in Elliott County, Kentucky. Alva Greene said Wade Flannery dreamed this tune and won a contest with it.
Ricky Skaggs learned it from Sanford Kelly and recorded it as SON OF HOBER, a tittle honoring his father. (See Rounder 0151) A version of this tune can be heard on Rounder 0376 by Alva Greene and on Berea AC007 by Roger Cooper.

6. Down At The Mouth Of Old Stinson (Wilson Douglas - John Hartford Music, BMI)
Stinson Creek is in Calhoun County, West Virginia near the Old Laury Hick's place where Wilson Douglas used to hear Ed Haley. Stinson was rough in the old days and a good place to stay away from. Wilson Douglas can be heard playing this on Marimac AHS #1.

7. The Girl With The Blue Dress On (Samuel Bayard - John Hartford Music, BMI)
Charlie Acuff plays a tune by this title in the same key (G) that is definitely a cousin to this one. Ed Haley played a tune by this name. Our source is Bayard No. 246 who says it is a cousin to SHANE O'NEILLS MARCH: O'Neill No. 1806.

8. Wild Hog In The Red Brush (Amyx Stamper - Happy Valley Music, BMI)
From the Harold Stamper recording of his father Amyx Stamper in the John Harrod/Gus Meade Collection. Eugie Hicks Postalwaite said Ed Haley played a tune by this name that could have been this one. Sherman Lawson on a Frank Hutchison record plays MISS McCLOUD'S REEL (UNCLE JOE) and calls it by this title. Frank was from Logan County, West Virginia near where Ed Haley was born.

9. Over The Road To Maysville (J.P. Fraley - Happy Valley Music, BMI)
There wasn't any tobacco warehouse in Morehead, Kentucky so you had to haul your tobacco to Maysville. First you play the tune peppy (haulin' the tobacco) then you get paid off and get drunk and come home and you play the tune draggy. OVER THE ROAD TO MAYSVILLE was cited in 1915 by G.R. McMahon from Sevierville, Tennessee. A different tune with this title is played by Snake Chapman and probably refers to the old Lexington-Maysville turnpike according to Steve Green. J.P. Fraley says the old timers called sustaining notes, "dwelling notes." We learned this tune from J.P. Fraley who learned it from his Dad and said Ed Haley played it. Snake Chapman said his version was played by the Gully Jumpers on The Grand Ole Opry.
Snake Chapman's tune is on Rounder 0378, Up In Chapman's Hollow. Mark Wilson says Snake's tune is related to OLD DUBUQUE. J.P. Fraley's version is on Rounder 0351.

10. Bumble Bee In A Jug (John Harrod/Geo Lee Hawkins - Happy Valley Music, BMI)
Jane Harrod and Bruce Greene both played us this tune. They learned it from "Geo" Lee Hawkins of Bath County, Kentucky who learned it from Tom Riley whose parents immigrated from Ireland to Fleming County, Kentucky. Tom Riley moved eventually to Marion County, Indiana wher Dick (John) Summers learned it. A recording by Geo Hawkins can be heard on Traditional Fiddle Music Of Kentucky - Volume I on Rounder 0376.
Roger Cooper who learned it from George Hawkins - plays it on Rounder 0380. The coarse part is supposed to imitate a bee trapped in a jug.

11. Bostony (John Harrod/Morris Allen - Happy Valley Music, BMI)
There were six well known sidewheel steamboats on the Ohio River called Bostona that all ran around Cincinnati, Portsmouth, Maysville, Big Sandy, Pomeroy, and Huntington. This was on a tape made by Mark Wilson and Gus Meade of Morris Allen.
Morris said that Ed Haley played it. Morris Allen was raised by the Keibler family, a prominent fiddling family around Portsmouth, Ohio. Roger Cooper of Garrison, Kentucky, was a friend of Morris Allen and plays his version on Rounder 0380.

12. Shelvin' Rock (French Carpenter - John Hartford Music, BMI)
French and Solly Carpenter who were friends of Ed Haley's played this according to Wilson Douglas. Bayard has this title as No. 72 but it doesn't resemble this tune. Charlie Acuff plays SHELBY ROCK. The Carpenter family maintains that Matt Jeremiah, a great, great grandfather to Ernie wrote this tune after "French's grandfather was born under a rock" in Webster County, West Virginia, during a family relocation but we suspect the tune and the title are much older. Vance Randolph has it on an Ozark tune list. Kenny Baker's father played it around Pound, Virginia. Alfred Bailey of Bath County, Kentucky, plays a tune of this title which is the same as Charlie Wilson and His Hayloft Boys on Gennett Records. This title has a lot of tunes attached to it according to Mark Wilson. Old timers often talk about dances held out under outcroppings or "Shelvin' Rock."

13. Molly Put The Kettle On (Brad Leftwich - John Hartford Music, BMI)
Not the usual melody associated with this title. We learned it from Brad Leftwich who learned it from Manco Sneed. Manco, Osey Helton and Marcus Martin all learned it from Jamed Dedrick Harris of Flag Pond, Tennessee who was Governor Bob Taylor's fiddler on campaign stops during the "War Of The Roses." Dedrick Harris was born in 1859, made fiddles and traveled.

14. West Fork Gals (Wilson Douglas - John Hartford Music, BMI)
Wilson Douglas says Ed Haley learned this tune in Clay County, West Virginia. Ed knew Anderson Dawson who, along with French Carpenter played it in the early 20's. Wilson Douglas learned it from French and we learned it from Wilson, whose version can be heard on Rounder 0047 and Marimac AHS1.

15. Portsmouth Airs (John Lozier- John Hartford Music, BMI)
John Lozier of Lewis County, Kentucky, played this for us on the harmonica over the telephone and said Ed Haley used to play it in front of the Old Railroad YMCA in Portsmouth. We played it for Eugie Hicks Postalwaite and she started singing BUFFALO GALS. Other versions can be heard by Buddy Thomas on Rounder 0376 and Roger Cooper on Berea AC007.

16. Coquette (John Hartford - John Hartford Music, BMI)
Samuel Bayard says this tune is international and possibly French in origin and is also known as THE WEAVER'S MARCH, FRISKY JENNY, CHARLES OF SWEDEN, and IN MY COTTAGE NEAR A WOOD. It is Bayard No. 294 called PRETTY POLLY. It is on the Lambert lists and we suspect Ed Haley played it.

17. Jimmy In The Swamp (R.P. Christenson- John Hartford Music, BMI)
Wilson Douglas said Ed Haley played a tune by this name so we dug out Christenson's setting of Uncle Bob Walter's version and played it for Wilson on the phone and he said that was it. The Walter's family immigrated from Kentucky to Iowa in the mid-1800's and eventually settled in Nebraska. Uncle Bob's father and grandfather were both fiddlers. Bob Walters's version is available from Charlie Walden of the Missouri Old Time Fiddlers Association.

18. Lady Of The Lake (Samuel Bayard - John Hartford Music, BMI)
As played by J.H. Chisholm in the Wilkinson Manuscript collection of Virginia Tunes. Another melody with this title has been played for years by the old time bands on the Grand Ole Opry and is known around Middle Tennessee. Wilson Douglas says Ed Haley played a tune with this title. This one we play here is probably not the one, we just like this one. The poem "Lady Of The Lake" was written by Sir Walter Raleigh who was popular on the Frontier. Roni Stoneman told us it was written by Green Leonard, her great, great grandfather on her mother's side. The Chisholm melody is in Geo Knauf's tune collection of 1839.

19. Natchez Under The Hill (Benny Thomasson - John Hartford Music, BMI)
This tune, a predecessor to OLD ZIP COON and TURKEY IN THE STRAW, was learned from Benny Thomasson one night in Dallas at a birthday party. "Natchez Under The Hill" was a popular 19th century Lower Mississippi River resort for liquor, gambling, prostitution and all that goes with it. This title appears in Geo Knauf's tune collection of 1839 and is mentioned in earlier frontier traveller's reports.

Thanks to:
Charlie Acuff, Billy Atkins, Elmer Bird, Bob Black, Robert Bowlin, Fletcher Bright, Kevin Burke, Jim Chancellor, Roger Cook, Wilson Douglas, J.P. and Annadeene Fraley, Gene Goforth, Adie Gray, Steve Green, Bruce Greene, Lawrence and Pat Haley, Matt Hartz, Linda Higginbothan, John Harrod, Randy Howard, Roy Huskey, Jr., Tina Liza Jones, Brandon Kirk, Brad Leftwich, Bennie Martin, Al Moledoux, Bruce Molsky, Frazier Moss, Al Murphy, Mark O'Connor, Earl Scruggs, Hank Tilbury, Charlie Walden, Tim Wendt, Mark Wilson and Jim Wood.

In Memorium:
Annadeene Fraley, Curly Fox, Beverly Haley, Lawrence Haley, Gus Meade, and Benny Sims

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Everything on this record is played in standard tuning. We have always has strong inclinations to remove certain minor harmonies from the tonalities of old fiddle melodies. We suspected our Scotch-Irish roots to be behind this and in the last few tears after reading "Rantin Pipe and Trembling String" by George Emmerson, we found historical reasons for our feelings.

Celtic music as well as speech got cleaned up in the 18th century by the church, the British government and the Italian and German "drawing room" influences as they formed these tunes into the restrictions of "proper" notation and harmony. Some of the old sounds, however, survive on the North American continent where they were taken by immigrants. However, even here some of them were trashed by notation and the instruments that accompanied them. The old tonalities do survive in the hands of the fiddlers in the Ohio and Mississippi River Valley: one of whom, Ed Haley, who primarily played in the Ohio River Valley inspired us, through his old records, to chase down his melodies as well as his playing style.

In our quest for information, we learned of a lot of tunes that he reportedly played but that we hadn't heard on his records. We've attempted to play some of these on this album. In addition, we have included some others that were learned and just liked and don't have any information that he may have played them.

Our Haley sources were his family, Mark Wilson and Gus Meade's great notes on the original Parkersburg Landing album, and tune lists such as the Berea Lists (Thanks to Steve Green) and the Lambert Collection (Thanks to Brandon Kirk).

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RO-0392

Released: 1996

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