I reached Ugee my Parkersburg Landing album, hoping it might rekindle the names of more Haley tunes.

“Ed had a habit of changing the name if he was in a different town,” she said. “Now just like this ‘Parkersburg Landing’, that’s another song that he always played.”

Ugee remembered Haley’s singing ability more than his fiddling.

“He had a beautiful voice,” she said. “It’d bring tears to anybody’s eyes. He could sing low, he could sing high. He sang ‘Stacker Lee’ and he didn’t lay his fiddle down when he sung. He played his own music and sang at the same time. I never heard nothing like him and I’ve heard a lot of them, Mr. Hartford, because they used to come to my dad’s house. Anybody come in anyplace close, they’d come to our place. They didn’t stay all night — they stayed a week or month. Banjos, guitars, whoever played music come to my dad’s. They wasn’t nobody in the world loved it any better than he did.”

Ugee went through some other tunes — like “McKinley” and “Old Zed Tanner” — but only remembered pieces of them. There was also “Fire on the Mountain” and “Buttermilk Mountain”.

Going on Buttermilk Mountain to see my old girlfriend again.

When I come out, there’ll be no Buttermilk girlfriend to meet me again.

When I come back, I’ll bring my girl from old Buttermilk Mountain.

I’m a goin’ away, I’m a goin’ to stay, I’m a goin’ to Buttermilk Mountain.

“Ella didn’t like that song,” Ugee said. “She’d say, ‘I hate that song. I don’t want to hear that old thing.’ She thought it was some girl Ed used to go with that he was talking about. Harvey my brother would get around and have Ed to sing it.”

Ugee said Harvey would come around with whisky and get Ed to play what he wanted, usually songs that made Ella jealous, like “Florene”.

I’m leavin’ you sweet Florena.

I’m leavin’ you sweet Florene.

I’m goin’ away, I’m goin’ to stay.

I’m a leavin’ you sweet Florene.

Oncest I bought your clothes sweet Florena.

Oncest I bought your clothes sweet Florene.

Oncest I bought your clothes

But now I ain’t got no dough

Now I have to travel on, sweet Florene.

Down in the pen sweet Florena.

I’m down in the pen sweet Florene.

I’m down in the pen, but for you I’d go again

I’m a leavin’ you sweet Florene.

“Harvey was a good man but he’d slip Ed a little shot of whiskey,” Ugee said. “He’d say, ‘Ed, it’s about time for you to have a little drink of water, ain’t it?’ Oh, it wouldn’t be but about a few minutes till old Ed was playing like crazy. You give him a shot and boy you oughta heard him. Then he’d say, ‘Ed, I’d like to hear that old Florene song.’ Ella would shake her head — ‘I don’t like that song. That’s about some of his old women that he used to run around with probably.’ And that’s all she’d say about it, but she’d shut her eyes tight and shake her head.”

She remembered Ed playing ‘Blackberry Blossom’ but couldn’t quite remember the story behind it.

“And then there was a song called ‘Pat Malone’,” she said. “Did you ever hear that song?”

Before I could answer, she started singing:

Times are hard in an Irish town. Everything was a going down

And Pat Malone was short for any cash.

He for life insurance spent all his money to a cent

And the most of his affairs had gone to smash.

Pat’s wife spoke up and said, “Oh dear Pat, if you were dead

There’s twenty thousand dollars we could get.”

So old Pat laid down and tried to make out that he had died

Until he smelt the whiskey at the wake.

Then Pat Malone forgot that he was dead.

Oh, he raised right up and shouted from his bed.

“If the wake goes on a minute, the corpse’ll sure be in it.

You gotta get me drunk to keep me dead.”

So they gave the corpse a sup.

After they had filled him up

And they laid him back upon his bunk again.

Then before the break of day everybody felt so gay

That they all forgot that he was dead.

So they took him from his bunk, still alive but he’s awful drunk.

And they laid him in his coffin with a prayer.

Then the driver swore by dad that he’d never start ahead

Until he seen that someone paid the fare.

And Pat Malone forgot that he was dead.

He raised right up in the coffin and he said,

“If you dare to doubt my credit, you’ll be sorry that you said it.

Drive on or this corpse will smash your head.”

So the driver started out on the cemetery route

And the people tried that widow to console.

Then near the churchyard lot, Pat Malone’s last resting spot,

They begin to lower the dummy in the hole.

When the clods begin to drop, Pat burst off the coffin top

And quickly to the earth he did ascend.

Then Pat Malone forgot that he was dead.

He quickly from that cemetery fled.

Pat come near a goin’ under, what a lucky thing by thunder,

Old Pat Malone forgot that he was dead.

I was blown away. I said to Ugee, “That’s great! Where in the world did that come from?”

“Oh,” she said, “that was from back in the hills there. That’s an old song. Just like that ‘Black Sheep’ song. You ought to have heard Ed play that.”

In a quiet country town not so very far away

Lived a rich and aging man whose hair was silvery gray.

He had three sons, his only ones, Jack and Tom were sly.

Ted was as honest as he could be and he would not tell a lie.

They both began to ruin him within the old man’s eyes.

Then the poison began its work and Ted was most despised.

One day the father said to him, “Be gone ye to the poor,”

And these words the Black Sheep said while standing in the door:

“Don’t be angry with me Dad. Don’t turn me from your door.

I know that I’ve been a worry, but I’ll worry you no more.”

Give to me one other chance and put to me the test

And you’ll find the Black Sheep loves you Dad far better than the rest.”

Year by year passed by and the father he grew old.

He called in both Jack and Tom and he gave to them his gold.

“All I want is a little room, just a place by your fireside.”

Jack returning home one night and he brought with him a bride.

The bride begin to hate the father more and more each day

Until one night she declared, “That old fool is in our way.”

They decided to send him to the poor house which was near.

And like a flash that Black Sheep’s words went ringing in his ear:

“Don’t be angry with me Dad. Don’t turn me from your door.

You know that I’ve been a worry worry, but I’ll worry you no more.

Give to me one other chance and put to me the test

And you’ll find the Black Sheep loves you Dad far better than the rest.”

Well a wagon drove up to the door, it was the poor house van.

The boys laughed and pointed to their dad and they says, “There is your man.”

Just then a rich and a manly form came pressing through the crowd.

“Stop you brutes,” the stranger said, “This will not be allowed.

You’ve taken the old man’s property and all that he could save.

You’ve even sold that little lot containing his wife’s grave.

I am his son but I’m not your kin from now till Judgement Day.”

The old man clasped the Black Sheep’s hand and the crowd all heard him say:

“Don’t be angry with me lad. Don’t turn me from your door.

I know that I was foolish, but I’ve repented o’er and o’er.

I should have gave to you my gold ’cause you have stood the test.

Now I find the Black Sheep far better than all the rest.”

Ugee apologized for her voice, saying, “Now, that’s not sung right. You oughta heard Ed Haley sing that to you. The first time I ever sung that, I sung a little bit of it to Ed, and when he come back again he was playing and singing that. It’d raise the hair on your head.”

I wondered if Laury was a singer and she said, “My dad couldn’t carry a tune but he could play that fiddle. My dad could whistle.”