I was reading through some bios of well-known Appalachian fiddlers in an “Old-Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame,” a great collection of info maintained online by David Lynch, a fiddler and graphic designer now living in North Carolina.
One of the fiddlers is Ed Haley. In a citation (gleaned from liner notes for a Rounder Records CD), he notes that James Edward “Ed” Haley (1883–1951), born in Logan County, West Virginia, was a blind fiddler who made the rounds of fiddle contests and small towns in West Virginia and Kentucky.
Haley was often accompanied by his wife Martha, who was also blind and played mandolin. Clark Kessinger and J.P Fraley both spoke highly of Ed Haley as an outstanding fiddler.
The notes also state that:
One old-timer, after hearing Haley play “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” declared that “if two armies could come together and hear him play that music, they’d kill themselves in piles.”
(. . . I think people may well have said something similar about me after listening to my fiddling, but for slightly different reasons.)
