#cacklin hen

[brandonraykirk]

In Search of Ed Haley 353

#JohnHartford and #BrandonKirk visit Cas Baisden on #HartsCreek in #LoganCounty, #WestVirginia. #history #EdHaley #music #amwriting

Early the next morning, Brandon and I arrived on the bus in Harts and drove to see Cas Baisden, who we spotted in a porch swing up main Harts Creek, just above the mouth of Smoke House Fork. It was a pastoral scene: a somewhat old farmhouse, several chickens in the yard and a few cattle in the distance who’d done a marvelous job of clearing the mountainside just back of the place. As we pulled up…

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[brandonraykirk]

In Search of Ed Haley 326

#JohnHartford, #BrandonKirk and Billy Adkins visit Luster Dalton on #HartsCreek to ask about #EdHaley. #music #history #WestVirginia #amwriting

From Harts proper, we headed up Harts Creek to the home of Luster Dalton, a son of Ed’s friend, Dood Dalton. Luster was born in 1924 and used to play the fiddle on weekends for free drinks at local “dives” with his brother Stump and two cousins. I asked him if he learned much from Ed and he said, “Yeah, I learned a lot from the old man Ed. He was a real fiddle player, son.”

I wondered if anybody…

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[brandonraykirk]

In Search of Ed Haley 325

#JohnHartford speaks with Marshall Kelley about #blind #fiddler #EdHaley. #Harts #WestVirginia #history #amwriting #music

That night, Brandon and I congregated at Billy Adkins’ house in Harts Bottom.  In ensuing conversation, Billy told us about Marshall Kelley, an old-timer in the community who remembered Ed. He dialed Marshall up, then put me on the telephone. Marshall said he was seventy-three years old, had been born and raised about three miles up Harts Creek and was the son of a Baptist preacher. He was great:…

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[brandonraykirk]

In Search of Ed Haley 317

#BrandonKirk re-visits Tootsie Tomblin on #HartsCreek about #fiddler #DoodDalton. #Appalachia #history #music #amwriting

In that same time frame, Brandon re-visited Tootsie Tomblin, a daughter of Ed Haley’s friend Dood Dalton. She presented him with a reel-to-reel recording of Dood playing the fiddle around 1971. He knew this was an amazing find, somewhat comparable to finding a recording of Laury Hicks, Ed’s fiddling friend in Calhoun County.

Tootsie warned Brandon that the recording wasn’t great because her…

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[brandonraykirk]

In Search of Ed Haley 107

I called Lawrence Haley a little later after working more on Ed’s music to brag on the phrasing and intonation in his father’s playing.

“Well,” Lawrence said, “that’s one thing with the bow I’d never be able to learn anyway. What pressure to put to…

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