Renowned fiddler Ed Haley box set released

Aug. 26—ASHLAND — One of Ashland's first families of music is featured on a new seven CD box set.

"Stole from the Throat of a Bird: The Complete Recordings of Ed and Ella Haley," released by Spring Fed Records, the in-house label of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, showcases Ed Haley's unique style of playing.

The Ed Haley Fiddle Contest has long been a part of Ashland's Poage Landing Days.

Spring Fed Records Manager John Fabke said many home recordings were made of Haley's music, and although they were of poor quality, they still captured his unique style of playing.

Fabke said the new release also uses recordings make in the 1990s when songwriter John Hartford, who became fascinated with Haley, made two double-CDs of his works titled "Parkersburg Landing," which was released through Rounder Records.

"Hartford later made the Haley music an important part of his work on the soundtrack for the hit film, 'O Brother Where Art Thou,'" Fabke said.

Born in Logan County, West Virginia, in 1885, Haley made a name for himself performing in Ashland and surrounding areas with his wife, Ella. Both were blind but raised seven children during the Great Depression and continued their musical careers.

Grandson Steve Haley said his grandfather had little choice but to be a musician.

"In those days, the plight of a disabled person in the inaccessible hollers of Appalachia was one of dependence and economic immobility. Ed was gifted five acres of farm land by an uncle. But, sightless as he was, he couldn't farm or cut timber, and consequently had no employment prospects in an area where logging comprised most of the economic base and farming put food on the table," Haley wrote in the 100-page liner notes booklet accompanying the CD set. "He sold that land to pursue his only prospect of earning an independent life."

In Strings Magazine, Jim Wood said "Stole from the Throat of a Bird" "showcases the sheer unadulterated genius of one the most significant folk artists to emerge from the American experience."

Wood said Haley's technique was unlike other folk artists.

"... he helped to establish a new standard of violin technique that, for all that one can reasonably assume prior to his ascendancy, was seldom, if ever, heard in the realm of folk fiddling," he said. "Haley was not a virtuoso in that he did not play complex passages that required advanced technique, but he did play simple, monophonic lines with a power and clarity of tone, a precision of intonation and execution and a rhythmic groove and control of the bow that few human beings are able to achieve. He played this relatively 'easy' material (compared to classical violin, for instance) with a greater depth and accuracy than was the standard of his day by orders of magnitude, and nearly a century later, only a handful of fiddlers can carry his case."

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