Ed Haley
(August 1885 - February 3,
1951)
Ed Haley was
born in Logan County, West Virginia. His father, Thomas Milton Haley, was a
well-known fiddler in the region. Ed contracted measles when he was about three
years old, and subsequently lost his eyesight. An uncle supposedly gave him his
first fiddle when he was a child. Ed showed great skill with the instrument and
traveled throughout the Guyandotte and Big Sandy Valleys as a young man with
other local musicians. Ed grew up to be
a professional fiddler who traveled widely throughout West Virginia, Ohio,
eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia. He had a huge repertoire of
old-time music that included breakdowns, jigs, waltzes and show tunes, which he
performed at square dances, fairs, street corners, fiddle contests and
courthouse squares.
Ed Haley was one of the best known fiddlers in his
region of Appalachia. He traveled frequently and performed in a variety of
venues. He played over WLW in Cincinnati and made occasional studio recordings
for friends, but he seldom recorded commercially because he was worried that
record companies would take advantage of a blind man. Late in life, he made
recordings for the family on a Wilcox-Gay disc-cutting machine brought home
from the service by his son Ralph. The recordings feature Ed, his wife Ella,
Ralph (on guitar) and daughter Mona (vocals). Ralph eventually distributed the
recordings among his five siblings. Eventually about a one-half to one-third of
those recordings were released to Rounder Records. It is estimated that two
thirds of Haley's recordings are still missing, lost, destroyed or unreleased
by family members.
Beginning in 1990, Bluegrass and folk musician John
Hartford began researching the story of Haley's life and music. Generally,
Hartford spent the last years of his life promoting Haley and his significance
in the world of music. He learned a number of Haley's tunes and recorded them
on the Grammy-nominated albums, "Wild Hog in the Red Bush" and
"Speed of the Old Long Bow: A Tribute to Ed Haley". Hartford
performed Haley's arrangement of "Man of Constant Sorrow" for the O
Brother, Where Art Thou? movie. Hartford and Brandon Kirk, a Harts-area
historian and genealogist, collaborated on a Haley book project from 1995 until
Hartford's death in 2001. The manuscript is still unpublished.
Listen to a recording of Ed Haley
playing Indian Girl