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Brandon Ray Kirk

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Brandon Ray Kirk

Tag Archives: fiddlers

Stidham Old-Time Music Gathering (2019)

02 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Inez, Music

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Appalachia, Chuck Williams, Creakside Country Band, fiddlers, fiddling, John Harrod, John Haywood & Brett Ratliff, Karly Dawn Milner, Kentucky, Kevin Howard, Larah Helayne, Larry Webster & the Mule Band, Laura Lee Duncan, Martin County, Michelle Wallace, music, old-time music, Poaceous, Robert Daniels, Stidham, Stidham Old-TIme Music Gathering, Tomahawk, Tommy Webb, Tona Barkley, Webb Music Store, Webb Twins String Band, Whistle & Fish, Zach McGlone

Promotion poster for Stidham Old-Time Gathering which occurs annually at Webb Music Store in Stidham, Martin County, KY.

Appalachian Heritage Day in Logan, WV (2019)

04 Tuesday Feb 2020

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Civil War, Coal, Logan, Music, Native American History

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Albert Gallatin Jenkins Camp, Appalachia, Appalachian Heritage Day, archaeology, bluegrass, Buddy Griffin, Chuck Keeney, civil war, Craig Ferrell, fiddlers, fiddling, flintknapping, Glenville State College, Hatfield-McCoy CVB, history, Logan, Logan County, Logan County Commission, Mine Wars Museum, Native American History, photos, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Southern Coalition for the Arts, Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College, Vinny Mendez, West Virginia, West Virginia Archaeological Society, writers, writing

Appalachian Heritage Day occurred on August 25, 2019 in Logan, WV. The event featured authors, scholars, guest speakers, information tables, a genealogy workshop, a writers’ workshop, numerous old-time and bluegrass music workshops, and an all-day concert. Special thanks to the Logan County Commission, Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College, the Hatfield-McCoy CVB, and the Southern Coalition for the Arts for sponsoring the event. For more information, follow this link to the event website: https://appalachianheritageday.weebly.com/

Buddy Griffin with Bluegrass Music Workshop

Buddy Griffith, who helped develop the world’s first bluegrass music degree program at Glenville State College, hosted a bluegrass fiddle workshop. For more about this amazing artist, go here: http://www.wvculture.org/vandalia/award/2011Griffin.html

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Sons of Confederate Veterans, Albert G. Jenkins Camp, were on hand to educate attendants about Southern history. For more about this group and its activities, go here: https://www.herald-dispatch.com/features_entertainment/memorial-service-held-in-milton-for-confederate-soldier-lt-james/article_44e81ab0-c7a0-550d-af96-c972bf27ca9d.html

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The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum provided information about regional labor history. Dr. Charles Keeney (shown above), a history professor at Southern WV CTC, presented a lecture about heritage tourism. For more about the Mine Wars Museum, go here: https://www.wvminewars.com/

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Craig Ferrell, past president of the Kanawha Chapter of the West Virginia Archaeological Society, demonstrates flintknapping for Vinny Mendez, a local relic hunter who showcased his collection of Civil War artifacts. Craig presented a lecture titled “The Art of Flintknapping and Stone Tool Replication.”

Appalachian Heritage Day in Logan, WV (2019)

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Civil War, Logan, Music, Women's History

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Almost Heaven Dulcimer Club, Appalachia, Appalachian Heritage Day, authors, Bobby Taylor, books, Carter Taylor Seaton, Confederate Army, Cooney Ricketts Chapter, culture, fiddler, fiddlers, fiddling, Hatfield-McCoy CVB, Hippie Homesteaders, history, Ken Hechler, Laura Treacy Bentley, Logan, Logan County Commission, Looking for Ireland, M. Lynne Squires, photos, Rebel in the Red Jeep, Southern Coalition for the Arts, Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Urban Appalachia, Vandalia Award, West Virginia

Appalachian Heritage Day occurred on August 25, 2019 in Logan, WV. The event featured authors, scholars, guest speakers, information tables, a genealogy workshop, a writers’ workshop, numerous old-time and bluegrass music workshops, and an all-day concert. Special thanks to the Logan County Commission, Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College, the Hatfield-McCoy CVB, and the Southern Coalition for the Arts for sponsoring the event. For more information, follow this link to the event website: https://appalachianheritageday.weebly.com/

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Authors Carter Taylor Seaton, Laura Treacy Bentley, and M. Lynne Squires offered their amazing books for sale, hosted meet-and-greet sessions at author tables, and presented about Appalachian topics. Each of these ladies has a website providing information about their biographies and books; for more info, give them a Google!

Cooney Ricketts UDC Group

The United Daughters of the Confederacy, Cooney Ricketts Chapter, were featured at Appalachian Heritage Day. This wonderful group of ladies offered history about Confederate soldiers and women on the home front. For more about this group, go here: https://www.herald-dispatch.com/features_entertainment/albert-gallatin-jenkins-united-daughters-of-confederacy-hosts-annual-meeting/article_6d2cdf9e-5ef3-5a75-a22f-69382944e145.html

Bobby Taylor in Old-Time Fiddle Workshop

Master fiddler Bobby Taylor hosted an old-time fiddle workshop. Bobby is the 2010 Vandalia Award winner. For more about Bobby, go here: http://www.wvculture.org/vandalia/award/2010taylor.html

Almost Heaven Dulcimer Club

The Almost Heaven Dulcimer Club made plenty of unforgettable music at Appalachian Heritage Day. For more about them, go here: http://www.davehaasmusic.com/davehaasmusic/Club.html

West Virginia State Folk Festival in Glenville, WV (2019)

23 Tuesday Jul 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Music

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banjo, banjo contests, Betty Vornbrock, fiddle contests, fiddlers, fiddling, folk festivals, Glenville, history, Lincoln County, music, Paul Gartner, Phyllis Kirk, The Country Store and Museum, The Pioneer Stage, West Virginia, West Virginia State Folk Festival

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Straight ahead…the WV State Folk Festival! Glenville, WV. 21 July 2019

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Here we are early in the day. 21 June 2019

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Highlight: The Country Store and Museum. 21 June 2019 https://www.wvstatefolkfestival.com/country-store-and-museum

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Inside of The Country Store and Museum are many great things! 21 June 2019

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Black Diamond Strings in The Country Store and Museum. 21 June 2019

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Here’s Betty Vornbrock winning the fiddle contest. 21 June 2019

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Paul Gartner, the winner of the banjo contest, lives in Lincoln County, WV. Photo by Mom. 21 June 2019

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Out and about on the grounds. 21 June 2019

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Out and about on the grounds. 21 June 2019

 

Old Time Band and Fiddlers Contest in Logan, WV (1937)

18 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Logan, Music

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Appalachia, Ellis Ball Park, fiddlers, fiddling, Grand Ole Opry, history, Kirk McGee, Logan, Logan Banner, Logan County, music, Sam McGee, Sarie and Sallie, West Virginia

Old Time Band and Fiddlers Contest McGees LB 07.01.1937.JPG

Logan (WV) Banner, 1 July 1937. 1500 seats!

Old Time Fiddlers’ Contests at the Logan Courthouse in Logan, WV (1927)

28 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Logan, Music

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Appalachia, Baumgardner's String Band, Belford Harvey, blind, David Miller, fiddle contest, fiddlers, fiddling, Grimes Music Shop, Guyandotte Mockingbirds, Hell Back of Maysville, history, Logan, Logan Banner, Logan County, music, Ohio, Paddy's on the Short Rows, Sourwood Mountain, West Virginia

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Logan (WV) Banner, 29 April 1927. Belford Harvey was a multi-instrumentalist associated with David Miller and the Guyandotte Mockingbirds.

Old-Time Fiddlers' Contest at Logan Courthouse LB 09.16.1927 1

Logan (WV) Banner, 16 September 1927.

Dr. Charles Wolfe Autograph (1998)

24 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in John Hartford, Music

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Appalachia, Brandon Kirk, Charles Wolfe, fiddler, fiddlers, fiddling, John Hartford, music, Nashville, The Devil's Box, U.S. South

Charles Wolfe Autograph

In July of 1998, John Hartford and I enjoyed a dinner gathering with Dr. Charles Wolfe of MTSU somewhere in Nashville. John knew Dr. Wolfe very well, but I had never met him. I admired several of Dr. Wolfe’s books. I owned a recently-purchased copy of his “The Devil’s Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling” (1997). At our dinner, Dr. Wolfe autographed my copy of his book. I met a lot of famous and wonderful people during my time in Nashville; in hindsight, his was the only autograph I ever asked for. https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Box-Masters-Southern-Fiddling/dp/0826513247

Winchester Adkins and Cain Adkins, Jr.

21 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Adkins Mill, Big Harts Creek, East Lynn, Harts, Lincoln County Feud, Music

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Appalachia, Cain Adkins, Cain Adkins Jr., fiddler, fiddlers, genealogy, Grand Ole Opry, history, Lincoln County, Lincoln County Feud, Mariah Adkins, Matoaka, Mercer County, Mingo County, Mingo County Ramblers, Norfolk and Western Railroad, Raleigh County, West Virginia, Williamson, Winchester Adkins

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Winchester Adkins (left) and Cain Adkins, Jr. (right), sons of Cain and Mariah (Vance) Adkins. Winchester (1874-1938) lived in Williamson, WV, where he was employed by the Norfolk and Western Railroad (and used the surname of Atkins). He was a fiddler who played on the Grand Ole Opry with a band called the Mingo County Ramblers. Cain Adkins, Jr. (1880-1943) lived in Matoaka, Mercer County, WV, and Raleigh County, WV. He was also a fiddler. Both men were children during their father’s involvement in the Lincoln County Feud. Photo courtesy of Adkins family descendants.

Blood in West Virginia (2015)

04 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley, John Hartford, Lincoln County Feud

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Appalachia, Ashland, Ashland Daily Independent, Blood in West Virginia, books, Brandon Kirk, Dave Lavender, Ed Haley, Ed Haley Memorial Fiddle Contest, Empire Books, fiddlers, fiddling, Goldenseal, Greenup, Hannibal H. Holbrook, Harts Creek, Herald-Dispatch, history, Huntington, John Hartford, Kentucky, music, Poage Landing Days, Steve Haley, The Kentucky Explorer, U.S. South, West Virginia, writing

The Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, WV, and the Ashland (KY) Daily Independent have recently provided great coverage of the book and related research projects. Many thanks to these newspapers for supporting regional history. Here are the links to the stories:

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/features_entertainment/author-to-sign-new-book-at-empire-on-saturday/article_dcf95a5c-13eb-5ecf-aeca-713a131626c5.html

http://www.dailyindependent.com/gallery/haley-grandson-talks-about-upcoming-release-of-rare-recordings/article_6fcc7b5e-5f49-11e5-b1a3-e79acc5be00b.html

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/features_entertainment/skating-fiddles-and-more-highlight-poage-landing-days/article_10db3396-7b50-5c6c-90c4-913007417462.html

I am honored that some of my writing will appear in forthcoming issues of Goldenseal and The Kentucky Explorer, two of my absolute favorite magazines. The Winter issue of Goldenseal will feature a story about Ed Haley’s background on Harts Creek and his later visits to the community. A smaller story details John Hartford’s search for Ed Haley in the Harts Creek area. The December issue of The Kentucky Explorer will feature a story about Ed Haley’s friendship with Dr. H.H. Holbrook of Ashland and Greenup.

http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/

https://www.kentuckyexplorer.com/

Lost John and his Allied Kentuckians

27 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ferrellsburg, Music

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banjo, Ferrellsburg, fiddle, fiddlers, fiddling, guitar, history, Lincoln County, Lost John and His Allied Kentuckians, mandolin, Mullins & Elkins store, music, Triena, West Virginia

Lost John and His Allied Kentuckians

Lost John and his Allied Kentuckians

Mullins & Elkins Store, Ferrellsburg, Lincoln County, WV

Mullins & Elkins Store, Ferrellsburg, Lincoln County, WV

John’s epilogue 2

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley, John Hartford, Music

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Arthur Smith, banjo, Ben Walker, Benny Martin, Bernie Adams, Billy Adkins, blind, Brandon Kirk, Buddy Emmons, Clayton McMichen, Doug Owsley, Durham, Ed Haley, fiddlers, fiddling, Green McCoy, Haley-McCoy grave, Harts, history, Imogene Haley, Indiana, Jeffersonville, John Hartford, Johnny Hager, Lawrence Haley, Mark O'Connor, Matt Combs, Melvin Kirk, Michael Cleveland, Milt Haley, Mona Haley, music, Nashville, North Carolina, Smithsonian, Snake Chapman, Tennessee, Texas Shorty, Ugee Postalwait, Webster Springs, West Virginia, Wilson Douglas, writing

When Ed first went out into the neighborhood with his dad’s fiddle and armed with his melodies (as interpreted by his mother) I think he probably caused not a small sensation amongst family and neighbors and his ear being as great as it was I think he picked up an incredible amount of other music really fast. I think he played with a lot of ornaments when he was a teenager and up into maybe even his thirties. Snake Chapman and Ugee Postalwait have alluded to this. Snake said the dining room recordings just didn’t sound as old-timey as he remembered Ed playing and Ugee said she remembered him and her dad talking about the little melodies between the notes. Of course Ed had to have been through a lot of subtle changes in style since that time. I think in later years he stripped a lot of the ornaments out of his fiddling in order to appeal to the Arthur Smith-Clayton McMitchen crowd who loved the radio style that was so much in vogue at that time. This might have helped make a little more money on the street. People have always liked to hear someone play and sound just like what they hear on the radio or a record. But I think if someone had asked Ed if he had done that consciously that he would have denied it and if he was in a bad mood they might have even had a fight on their hands.

I keep having this idea of Ed imitating other instruments on the fiddle because I’ve tried it myself and wouldn’t it be something that some of these great parts was really an imitation of John Hager’s banjo playing. I’d love to know where that passage is or whether it even exists.

It’s obvious that when Ed had good firm second that wouldn’t slow down for anything, he really leaned back on the beat and got in that little pocket where so many great musicians like to be. Ella and Mona really held up a good solid beat, but I’ll bet Ed was hard on them — a real taskmaster. It’s all in that rhythm section. Wilson Douglas told me one time that Ed always told him to play it real lazy. Texas Shorty, Benny Martin, and Buddy Emmons refer to it as holding on to the note as long as you can before you start the next one. This is an important part of Ed’s feel and sound and it really comes through on the dining room recordings. I get it by playing as slow as I can against a beat I hope is not gonna move, and then I swing the notes with a dotted note feel — a real lilt if I can get it — and just drag on the beat as hard as I can ’cause I know it’s not gonna slow down. I’d love to know just when Ed figured that out or if it was always there. I always think of Ed in his younger years playing on top of the beat or even ahead of it like I did when I was young and full of piss and vinegar. Actually when you’re playing alone you do hafta pretty well stay on top of the beat to hold the time or at least set it, cause you are the beat but you have to keep from rushing which we will tend do when we get to hard passages in order to get them over with. We’ll not do that no more. Mark O’Connor told me one time that while he is playing a tune he’ll play on top of and behind the beat on purpose. He described playing behind it as letting the beat drag you along…almost like water skiing. Oh, to have known what Ed and John Hager or Bernie Adams sounded like together.

I think Ed worked on his fiddling probably daily most of his life so it is fair to say that it was changing all the time. This would explain the varying descriptions of his playing that have come down. I’m sure they’re probably all accurate. Lawrence, Ugee, and Mona always said Ed played with great smooth long bow strokes and Snake Chapman always was adamant about him playing with short single strokes and Slim Clere said the same thing — that he bowed out everything — no bow slurs. Of course, in the dining room sessions you can hear both ways. It’s amazing how well Ed did without the feedback of working with a tape recorder. What an incredible ear he had. As far as I know, the only time he probably heard himself played back was the recordings we have. I hope there are others out there but I’ve come to doubt it.

Brandon and I have always had a gut feeling that if we’d dug down into the hillside a little further at Milt and Green’s grave we might have found something. We only went down five feet and then we were defeated by the rain. What if we had gone down the requisite six feet? What if, like the probe, Owsley had misjudged the bottom of the grave shaft due to the mud and water? What if it hadn’t rained and muddied up the work area? If Melvin Kirk and Ben Walker went so far as to bury the men in a deep grave, why not assume they would have gone for the standard six feet grave traditionally dug? In the following weeks, old timers around Harts kept telling Brandon and Billy, “If they didn’t dig at least six feet, it’s no wonder they didn’t find anything.” We didn’t want to question the professionalism of experts like the Smithsonian forensic team or seem like we wanted to find Milt and Green so badly that we couldn’t accept the concept that they were gone…but what if? The explanation that Doug Owsley gave us about the coal seam and underground stream made a lot of sense. Needless to say we were really disappointed. I had started to rationalize that not finding anything might indicate that they were buried in the nude and just thrown in the hole with no box or winding sheet or anything.

I was in Durham, North Carolina, the other day and I saw a fiddler on the street and I automatically found myself thinking of Ed. I didn’t have to fill in or rearrange much in my imagination to see him there playing on the street — even though this man was standing up, and played nothing like him. Of course when Ed was younger he probably stood up to play all the time like in the Webster Springs picture…dapper and wearing his derby. I always seem to picture Ed sitting down. Another great thrill for me is a young blind fiddler from Jeffersonville, Indiana, named Michael Cleveland who when he plays I can see Ed at nineteen. He stands up so straight he almost looks like he’s gonna fall over backward the way Lawrence said his dad did. When he plays I can’t take my eyes off of him thinking of Ed. Now my friend Matt Combs, who has done a lot of the transcriptions for this book, sits with me and plays Ed’s notes off of the paper, and I play off the top of my head, so in that sense it’s like playing with him.

I guess it’s time to just leave this alone and get back to my study of the fiddle. Maybe get geared up for “Volume Two.” I spend long hours here at the dining room table with my tape recorder and I can hear Lawrence and feel Ed as I try and play my way back into the past. I find that the study of Ed’s music leads me to the study of all music and the way it’s played.

In Search of Ed Haley 343

25 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Calhoun County, Ed Haley, John Hartford, Music

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Akron, Banjo Tramp, Black Sheep, Calhoun County, Canton, Chloe, Ed Haley, fiddle, fiddlers, fiddling, Gus Meade, harp, Jo LaRose, John Hartford, Kerry Blech, Laury Hicks, Lawrence Haley, music, Ohio, Parkersburg Landing, Ragpicker Bill, Rector Hicks, Rounder Records, Stackolee, Sugar in the Morning, Tommy Jarrell, Traditional Music and Dance in Northeast Ohio, West Virginia

Not long after visiting Ugee, I received some great information in the mail regarding Rector Hicks, a fiddler and nephew to Ed’s friend Laury Hicks. Rector grew up watching his uncle Laury play the fiddle.

“Rector was born out in the country around Chloe, Calhoun County, West Virginia, in 1914,” Joe LaRose wrote in Traditional Music and Dance in Northeast Ohio (March 1985). “His father was a good mouth harp player, but no one else in his family played music. Rector learned from fiddlers who lived in his area, beginning to play the instrument when he was around ten years old. Rector learned a lot from time spent with a distant cousin, Laury Hicks, a generation older than Rector and one of the foremost fiddlers in the area. ‘I don’t know of a fiddle player, really, that played like him. Ed Haley said Laury was the best fiddler he ever heard on the old time tunes, you know, and old fast ones. Hisself, he said that. And I always thought he was.'”

While at Laury’s, Rector Hicks also had the opportunity to see Ed.

“He was hard to figure out,” Rector told LaRose. “When I was around him most I didn’t know too much about fiddling, and a lot of that stuff I could pick up now if I was around him. How he got all that in there with his bow like he did you’d never believe it. He just set there this way (passes the length of the bow back and forth across the strings) but everything seemed like it just come in there. If you’d hear him play… Now that record, that’s not Ed Haley. That’s him, but that’s no good. You don’t get a lot of what he puts in. But he puts every note in that thing. His left hand, his fingers just flew. But his right hand… He just set there and his fiddle laid on his arm, set there and rocked. That’s the way he played. All them fastest tunes he played, didn’t seem like he put any of the bow in hardly. But it was all in there.”

Rector seemed to idolize Haley, at least according to Kerry Blech, a fiddling buff and friend of mine.

“Rector, when he was a teenager, had saved up some money and got him a pretty good fiddle and when Ed would come and stay at Laury’s house Rector would always come over,” Kerry wrote. “For a couple of years, Ed would tease him and say, ‘Well, I really like that fiddle you got, Rector. We should swap.’ And once he did and went off and played in some other town, then came back through about a week later and got his fiddle back. Rector said he was just really thrilled to’ve had Ed’s fiddle for even a week.”

As Rector got older and learned more about the fiddle, he really patterned after Haley’s style.

“Rector’s approach to playing has much in common with Haley’s,” LaRose wrote of Hicks. “Like Haley, Rector holds his fiddle against his upper arm and chest and supports it with his wrist (he does not rock the fiddle under the bow, though, like Haley did.) Rector uses a variety of bow strokes. Like Haley, he uses the length of the bow, sometimes playing a passage of several notes with one long stroke, deftly rocking the bow as he plays. He will accent the melody at chosen times with short, quick strokes. Rather than overlay the melody with a patterned or constant bow rhythm as some dance-oriented fiddlers do, Rector adapts his bowing to the melody of the particular tune he’s playing. Much of the lilt and movement of his tunes is built into the sequence of notes played with his left hand.”

Rector apparently kept in touch with Ed’s family, who he sometimes visited long after Haley’s death, and was very disappointed with the quality of fiddling on the Parkersburg Landing album.

“When I met Rector in the mid-70s, the Haley LP had just come out and Rector called me up to tell me it was awful,” Kerry wrote. “He said it was not representative of the man’s genius. He told me that he knew the man, and although many years had passed, the Haley genius was still in his mind’s eye. He also said that there were many other home recordings beyond what Gus Meade had copied. He said that Haley’s children had split up the recordings, that Lawrence had a number of them, and that a daughter, who lived in the Akron-Canton area, had over a hundred of them, and that Rector occasionally went over there and listened. He said that the family was irritated by how the Rounder record came to be and did not want to be involved with any of us city folk any more, afraid that someone would exploit their father’s music.”

At that time in his life, Rector mostly played Tommy Jarrell tunes but also several Ed Haley tunes, like “Birdie”, “Sugar in the Morning” (“Banjo Tramp”), “Ragpicker Bill”, “Black Sheep”, and “Staggerlee”.

In Search of Ed Haley 340

21 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Calhoun County, Ed Haley, John Hartford, Music

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Alabama, Arnoldsburg, Ashland, Bill Day, Brandon Kirk, Buttermilk Mountain, Calhoun County, Catlettsburg, Cincinnati, Doc White, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, England, fiddlers, fiddling, George Hayes, Grand Ole Opry, Great Depression, Harvey Hicks, history, Jean Thomas, Jilson Setters, John Hartford, Kentucky, Laury Hicks, Minnie Hicks, Mona Haley, music, Nashville, Nora Martin, Rogersville, Rosie Day, Sweet Florena, Ugee Postalwait, West Virginia, writing

I asked Ugee if Laury ever listened to the Grand Ole Opry and she said, “Yes. He got to hear it the year before he died. He got a radio. Let’s see, what is his name? George Hayes. We had Hayeses that lived down at Arnoldsburg. And he brought Dad up a little radio when Dad was down sick.”

Now, did Ed Haley ever hear the Grand Ole Opry?

“Oh, yes. He heard it down in Kentucky.”

Did he like it?

“No. He went to Cincinnati one time. They was a gonna make records — him and Ella — but they wanted to pick out the one for him to play. Nobody done him that a way. So he said, ‘I’ll pick my own.’ He went to Nashville once. I don’t know as he went to the Grand Ole Opry but he went to Nashville. Somebody drove him, took him down. But when he found out what they done, he didn’t have no use for that.”

Ugee made it clear that she had missed out on most of Ed’s wild times. She knew nothing about his running around with people like Doc White or chasing women. She did say he was bad about telling “dirty jokes.”

“Many a time he’s told me, ‘All right, Ugee. You better get in the kitchen. I’m gonna tell a dirty joke.’ And he’d tell some kind and you could hear the crowd out there just a dying over it. Ella’d say, ‘Mmm, I’ll go to the kitchen, too.'”

I asked Ugee about Ed’s drinking and she told the story again about her brother Harvey giving him drinks to play “Sweet Florena”. She sang some of it for me:

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

And I have to travel on, sweet Florene.

After finishing that verse, Ugee said, “That’s part of the song. And Ella didn’t like to hear that song. I think it reminded her of some of his old girlfriends or something. And she didn’t like for him to play ‘Buttermilk Mountain’, either. He’d throw back his head and laugh. She’d say, ‘Don’t play that thing. I don’t want to hear that thing.’ But she’d second it. She’d draw her eyes close together.”

Brandon asked Ugee about her aunt Rosie Hicks, who was Laury’s sister and a close friend to the Haley family. She said Aunt Rosie was working in Ed’s home in Catlettsburg when she met Blind Bill Day (her sixth husband) during the early years of the Depression. It was a rocky marriage, according to Rosie’s only child, Nora (Davis) Martin.

“I was gonna tell you about him hitting Aunt Rosie,” Ugee said. “He came through the house and Aunt Rosie was upstairs quilting and all at once — Nora said she was in the kitchen cooking — and she heard the awfulest noise a coming down the stairs and said, ‘Mommy had old Bill Day by the leg and was bringing him bumpety-bump down the stairs, dragging him. Got him in the kitchen. He just walked up and hit her with that left hand right in the mouth. She just jerked his britches off of him and started to sit his bare hind-end on the cook stove — and it red hot.’ And Nora said, ‘Oh, Mommy, don’t do that. You’ll kill him.’ She said, ‘That’s what I’m a trying to do.’ And she grabbed her mother and him both and jerked them away from there.”

Ugee was more complimentary of Day’s colleague, Jean Thomas.

“I’ve got cards from her and letters and pictures,” she said. “I’ve been to her house — stayed all night with her. She was nice. She was too good to Bill Day. She spent money on him and give him the name of Jilson Setters. Sent him to England and he played for the queen over there.”

Brandon wondered if Bill Day was a very good fiddler.

“Well, I’m gonna tell ya, I stayed all night with Aunt Rosie and Bill Day one time,” Ugee said. “They lived on 45th Street in Ashland, Kentucky. My brother took me and my mom down there and he hadn’t seen Aunt Rosie for a long time. She’d married again and she lived down there in Ashland, Kentucky. And we aimed to see Ed and Ella, but they was in Cincinnati playing music. That’s who we went to see. So Harvey, he filled hisself up with beer. That’s the first time I ever seen a quart bottle of beer. Anyway, we went up there to hear Uncle Bill play. Harvey laid down on the bed like he was sick. He wasn’t sick: he wanted me just to listen to that fellow play that fiddle. He knowed I’d get sick of it. And he played that song about the Shanghai rooster. I never got so tired in my life of hearing anything as I did that. He only played three pieces. Harvey laid there, he’d say, ‘Play that again. I love it.’ And I had to sit there and listen to it, ’cause I didn’t want to embarrass him by getting up and walking out. I walked over to Harvey and I said, ‘You’re not sick and you’re not tired, so you get up.’ Said, ‘Ugee, I’ve got an awful headache. I drove all the way down here.’ I said, ‘That bottle that you drank give you the headache, so you get up and you listen to your Uncle Bill.’ He went to the toilet. I said, ‘I’m telling you right now — you’re gonna listen to Uncle Bill if I have to listen to him.’ Harvey said, ‘I’m not listening to him no longer. I’ve heard all I want to hear of Uncle Bill.’ I got Harvey up and then I run and jumped in the bed and I covered my head up with a pillow. But we stayed all night and Aunt Rosie went home with us. She told him she’s a going up to Nora’s, but she went to Calhoun with us in the car, and I reckon while she’s gone old Bill tore up the house. I don’t think they lived together very long after that ’cause it wasn’t very long till she come back home. It was home there at my dad’s.”

Brandon asked if Day ever played with Ed in Calhoun County and Ugee said, “Oh, no. If he had, Dad woulda kicked him out.”

Okay, I thought: so Laury had no tolerance for lesser fiddlers. What about Ed?

“Ed Haley, if somebody was playing a piece of music and they wasn’t hitting it right, he’d stick his hands in his pockets and say, ‘Goddamn, goddamn,'” Ugee said. “Dad’d say, ‘Boy, ain’t he good?’ Ed would cuss a blue streak. Then after the man was gone, whoever it was, Dad and Ed would go to mocking him. Dad and Ed Haley was like brothers. They loved each other. Ella and Mom, too. Jack was the baby the first time I seen Ed after he was married. They was expecting Lawrence, so they named him after my dad. Then when she had Mona, why instead of calling her Minnie, she named her after Mom.”

In Search of Ed Haley 339

20 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Calhoun County, Ed Haley, John Hartford, Music

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Alabama, banjo, Booger Hole, Brandon Kirk, Calhoun County, Dixie, Ed Haley, Elizabeth Hicks, fiddle, fiddlers, fiddling, Gid Tanner, Hinkey Dinkey Dee, Jasper McCune, Jim McCune, John Hartford, John McCune, Laury Hicks, Minnie Hicks, Mount Airy, music, North Carolina, Perry Meadows, Ralph Haley, Rogersville, Skillet Lickers, Tom McCune, Ugee Postalwait, Washington Hicks, West Fork Gals, West Virginia, writing

As Ugee spoke about her life, I pulled out the Laury Hicks fiddle and began to play. For Ugee, hearing it painted pictures and conjured up images from long ago. Her eyes teared up, full of emotion and melancholy.

“I never thought I’d hear Dad’s fiddle played again,” she said, after I played one tune.

For the next half-hour, I played for her, intermittently asking things like, “Did you ever hear Ed play ‘The Star Spangled Banner’?”

“I certainly have.”

What about “Dixie”?

“Oh my god, yes. Him and Dad both played ‘Dixie’.”

Did they play “West Fork Gals”?

“Oh, yeah. I don’t think they was any fiddling pieces back then they didn’t know.”

Before putting the fiddle back in the case, I asked what Ed did when he needed repairs on his fiddles.

“They didn’t work on their fiddles very much,” Ugee said. “They kept their fiddles in good shape. I’ve seen Dad string the bow hair off a horse’s tail. Seen him do that a many a time. He’d string up the bows for Ed, too. Dad could do all of that.”

Did Ed trade fiddles a lot?

“Oh, yeah. Anybody that came along. He’s been there with three or four. He used to come and try to trade some of them off to Dad. Sometimes Dad’d trade with him, sometimes he didn’t. I’ve seen my dad have as high as seven fiddles.”

I showed Ed’s fiddle to Ugee and she said, “Ed Haley got that fiddle from Dad. Ed traded him a real dark-looking fiddle. Ed got my guitar, too. He wanted it for Ralph.”

Brandon asked Ugee about her father’s background, a very important thing considering his strong presence in Ed’s life. She said he was born in 1880 to Washington and Elizabeth (McCune) Hicks in Calhoun County.

“Well, he come very near to getting killed when he was young,” she said. “Perry Meadows stabbed him seven times with a knife right around the heart in a fight. They didn’t think he’d live at all. He told Perry if he lived, ‘I’ll get you.’ He liked to beat Perry to death after he got older. Old Mrs. Meadows was gonna indict Dad over it it but Dad rode a pony horse and went with Ab Moss’ mother to Mount Airy, North Carolina. Back then, they wasn’t no roads — just trails. Took his big dog with him named Ring. He come very near to beating Perry to death, though, I guess. They was friends afterwards. Perry lived down the road just about half a mile below us. Dad never cared that much about Perry but he treated him right.”

Ugee spoke little about Laury’s bachelor days but implied that his musical skill and talent at square dancing made him popular with the ladies.

“They wouldn’t have a square dance in the country without having Laury Hicks,” she bragged.

She felt Laury inherited his musical talent from his mother’s side of the family, the McCunes. Laury’s uncle Jim McCune, who lived at the infamous “Booger Hole,” had musical children: John was a good fiddler on two or three tunes, while Jasper was the best banjoist in the area. Another son Tom “could play the banjo, but he was the best whistler I ever heard in my life. Dad give him a dollar a day to come up and whistle for him when he was bad sick.”

“All them McCunes could play music and they could dance, too,” Ugee said, before adding that they were mostly known as singers.

In 1904, Laury married Minnie Shaver. Because he was so close to his mother (he was her “favorite”), he remained living at home with his new bride. Years later, he played his fiddle and sang for his mother at her deathbed. Ugee sang all she could remember of the song:

There was an old man, he had a wooden leg.

He had no tobaccer but tobaccer he’d beg.”

“That was Grandpap Hicks’ favorite and the night that Granny died in 1923 I was putting her to bed and he was just see-sawing on the fiddle. She said ‘Laury, play your dad’s tune,’ and he said, ‘Oh Mam, I have to change the key.’ She said, ‘Don’t make no difference. Play Wash’s piece.’ I never will forget: I went to the kitchen and he was playing that and he hollered, ‘Hey, Ugee! Come here quick!’ And I come back in and seen they was something wrong with Granny. And I run and aimed to work with her…she was gone.”

Ugee couldn’t remember the title of her grandfather’s favorite tune, nor any more words to it, but Brandon later found those lyrics in a song recorded by Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers called “Hinkey Dinkey Dee”.

Moses “Wog” Dalton

20 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Music

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Appalachia, fiddlers, genealogy, Harts Creek, history, life, Lincoln County, music, photos, U.S. South, West Virginia, Wog Dalton

Moses

Moses “Wog” Dalton (1845-1933), an old fiddler from Big Branch of Harts Creek, Lincoln County, WV

In Search of Ed Haley 337

17 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Ed Haley, Lincoln County Feud

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Al Brumfield, banjo, Billy Adkins, blind, Bob Bryant, Brandon Kirk, Burl Farley, Charley Brumfield, Ed Haley, Fed Adkins, fiddlers, French Bryant, Green McCoy, Harve "Short Harve" Dingess, history, Hollene Brumfield, Hugh Dingess, John Hartford, Kentucky, Lincoln County Feud, Martin County, measles, Milt Haley, music, Nashville, Piney, Smokehouse Fork, Tom Holzen, West Fork, Wolf Creek, writing

Brandon and I also called Bob Bryant, a son of the infamous French Bryant, who lived with his son at the mouth of Piney Creek on West Fork. Billy Adkins had encouraged us to call Bob, saying that he would probably tell us what he knew of the Haley-McCoy murders. When we called Bob, his son said we were welcome to talk with his dad, although he warned us that his memory wasn’t very good.

Bob said he was born on Piney in 1911.

When I asked him about French Bryant he said he knew very little about him because his dad “was pretty old” when he was born. He said he did remember his father talking “some” about the Haley-McCoy affair.

“Milt and Green were pretty rough fellers who got in a lot of trouble all the time,” Bob said. “They were bad to drink. Milt Haley and Green McCoy was fiddlers — I think so. Maybe they was. Yeah, I almost know they was. One of them picked the banjo, I believe, but I don’t know for sure.”

Bob said Hugh Dingess, who was “kind of an outlaw,” organized a posse to fetch Milt and Green after they shot Al and Hollena Brumfield. They found them over around Wolf Creek in Martin County, Kentucky.

“Them Dingesses up there killed them,” Bob said. “It didn’t take much to get them to shoot you back then. People’d shoot you just to be a doing something.”

I asked Bob if he ever heard anything about who took part in what he kept calling “the shooting” and he said, “Hugh Dingess and four or five more.”

He paused, then said, “A few of them I wouldn’t want to tell you.”

We were just waiting for him to say his father’s name when he said, “Short Harve Dingess was pretty rough. Seems like he was in that bunch some way.”

Some of the others were: Al Brumfield, Charley Brumfield, Fed Adkins, and Burl Farley.

Bob never identified his father as a member of the mob but mentioned that his father was a friend to the Dingesses on Smokekouse.

He said he remembered seeing Ed play at the schoolhouse above the mouth of Piney when he was nineteen years old.

“He was a real fiddler,” Bob said.

In subsequent weeks, Brandon and I went through most of our information — processing it, sorting it, discussing it. We thought more about the story of Milt causing Ed’s blindness by dipping him in ice water and wondered how anyone would have ever equated those as cause-effect events. I got on the phone with Dr. Tom Holzen, a doctor-friend of mine in Nashville, who said Milt’s dipping of Ed in ice water, while a little crude, was actually the right kind of thing to do in that it would have lowered his fever. Based on that, Milt seems to have been a caring father trying to save Ed’s life or ease his suffering. Was it the act of a desperate man who had already lost other children to disease?

1st Annual Ed Haley Fiddle Contest

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ashland, Big Sandy Valley, Ed Haley, John Hartford, Music

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Annadeene Fraley, Ashland, banjo, Brandon Kirk, Ed Haley, Ed Haley Fiddle Contest, fiddlers, fiddling, history, J P Fraley, John Hartford, Kentucky, mandolin, Mike Compton, music, Nancy McClellan, Paul David Smith, Peter Even, photos

Ed Haley Contest 1

(L-R) Peter Even, Mike Compton, Brandon Kirk, J.P. Fraley, Nancy McClellan, Paul David Smith, and John Hartford.

John Edward “Ed” Belcher

05 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley, Logan, Music

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Appalachia, Ed Belcher, fiddler, fiddlers, fiddling, genealogy, history, Logan, Logan County, music, photos, violin, West Virginia

belcher

John Edward “Ed” Belcher (1886-1970), violinist and resident of Logan, WV

In Search of Ed Haley 307

18 Sunday May 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Calhoun County, Civil War, Ed Haley, Music

≈ 2 Comments

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Ashland, Atlanta, Big Ugly Creek, Birdie, blind, Boatin' Up Sandy, Catlettsburg, Chapmanville, Charleston, Cincinnati, civil war, Clark Kessinger, Coalton, Crawley Creek, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, fiddlers, fiddling, Girl With the Blue Dress On, Godby Branch School, Grantsville, Grayson, Great Depression, Green Shoal, Harts School, history, Hugh Dingess School, John Hartford, Kentucky, Lawrence Haley, Logan, Margaret Arms, Mona Haley, music, Orange Blossom Special, Pat Haley, Ralph Haley, Slim Clere, Sweet Georgia Brown, Tennessee Waggoner, The Old Lady Carried the Jug Around the Hill, Wewanta, writing

We hadn’t played long until Slim was telling me more about his background.

“I came from a line of Irish fiddlers,” he said. “My dad, his brothers, and his dad…  The old man was so good on the fiddle — he was in the Civil War — my grandfather — that the soldiers all chipped in and bought him a fiddle and he didn’t have to fight. He was from Coalton on the road to Grayson out back of Ashland.”

Slim said his dad played “The Old Lady Carried the Jug Around the Hill” and “Girl With the Blue Dress On”.

Here comes the girl with the blue dress on, the blue dress on, with the blue dress on.

Everybody’s crazy about the girl with the blue dress on…

I asked him if his father played “Catlettsburg” and he said yes, although it was not the same version as what Ed played.

“My dad played it,” Slim said. “He played ‘Birdie’, ‘Tennessee Waggoner’. He got these two fingers cut when he was working at a steel mill and his fingers stayed stiff so he had to play the rest of his life with these two fingers. I don’t remember when he played with all five ’cause I was too small. He played ‘Boatin’ Up Sandy’.”

Every now and then, Slim would tell me something about Ed.

“Every Saturday Ed would go to a county courthouse someplace,” he said. “Believe it or not, he was in Grantsville one time when I was up there, sitting on the steps up there at the courthouse. I walked over, I said, ‘Ed, aren’t you out of place?’ He said, ‘You’re liable to find me anywhere.'”

I asked Slim if he ever saw Ed drunk and he said, “I don’t think I ever saw him sober. He didn’t get too high. Seemed like it give him more pep.”

I asked Slim if he remembered Sweet Georgia Brown coming to see Ed in Ashland and he said, “He was up in Ashland at one time. We called him Brownie. Well, he wasn’t around Ed too much. Ed was a close guy. He didn’t associate with a lot of people. Now, he liked me pretty well…but most fiddle players don’t like fiddle players.”

Speaking of fiddlers, Slim said he had met a lot of them during his lifetime. I wondered if he ever met any as good as Ed and he said, “Clark Kessinger was the closest. I think Clark learned from him. See when Clark made records for Brunswick — they had a studio down in Ashland — Ed wouldn’t play on it. He wouldn’t make records. Didn’t want to. He wouldn’t play over the radio. He said they wasn’t any money in that. He wanted to be somewhere somebody could throw a nickel or dime in that cup. He was very poor. He wasn’t starving to death, but — his wife was blind, too — there was no way that they could make any money. And he had a 17- or 18-year-old boy — he was a good guitar player, but he wouldn’t play with him. I don’t remember what his name was. He was ashamed of his father and mother — to get out in public. Not for any personal reasons…just the fact he could see and they couldn’t.”

Slim began talking about his own career in music, mostly his Depression-era radio work. He mentioned working with or meeting people like Bill and Charlie Monroe and Earl Scruggs and even credited himself with bringing “Orange Blossom Special” to Charleston from Atlanta in October of 1938. He kind of caught us by surprise when he spoke of having played all through the Guyandotte Valley.

“We played personal appearances up and down through there,” Slim said. “Played schools and theaters: Godby Branch School, up on Crawley Creek — one room school — and Hugh Dingess School — it was about an eight-room red brick building — Green Shoal, Wewanta. Harts School, I guess I must have played that school fifteen times. From about ’39 on up to 50-something. Everybody turned out when we played Harts. It was supposed to be the meanest place they was on the Guyan at that time. Came across Big Ugly Creek there. See, it goes from Lincoln County over into Boone. I used to broadcast down in there. I’d say, ‘All you Big Ugly girls be sure to come out and see us now.'”

I asked Slim if he played with any local musicians and he said, “No, we went in and played the show. Once in a while, we’d have amateur contests and they’d come in. Well, we’d have fiddling conventions at big high schools.”

I asked Slim if he ever saw Ed around Harts and he said, “No, not down there. Only time I ever seen Ed was around Ashland and Logan and Chapmanville. He played at the bank in Chapmanville. Chapmanville was 12 miles from Logan.”

Later that night, Brandon and I found some more family photographs in a box at Pat Haley’s. One was of Ella, while others were of Margaret Arms. Margaret was a real “mystery lady”: nobody seemed clear on her relationship to the Haley family. Lawrence Haley had remembered her as a cousin to either Ed or Ella, while Mona called her “Margaret Thomas” and said she lived in Cincinnati.

Slim Clere and John Hartford

16 Friday May 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley, Music

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Tags

Appalachia, Brandon Kirk, fiddlers, John Hartford, music, photos, Slim Clere, South Charleston, U.S. South, West Virginia

Slim Clere, John Hartford, and myself at Slim's home in South Charleston, WV, 1996

Here I am with Slim Clere and John Hartford at Slim’s home in South Charleston, WV, 1996

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Feud Poll 1

If you had lived in the Harts Creek community during the 1880s, to which faction of feudists might you have given your loyalty?

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Feud Poll 2

Do you think Milt Haley and Green McCoy committed the ambush on Al and Hollene Brumfield in 1889?

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Who do you think organized the ambush of Al and Hollene Brumfield in 1889?

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What do you think caused Ed Haley to lose his sight when he was three years old?

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