James Edward "Ed" Haley (August 16, 1885 – February 3, 1951)[disputed – discuss] was a blind professional American musician and composer best known for his fiddle playing.
Ed Haley was born on August 16, 1885[disputed – discuss], on the Trace Fork of Harts Creek in Logan County, West Virginia.
His grandfather, Benjamin R. Haley, was an active Unionist in the Big Sandy River Valley during the American Civil War, as well as a fiddler.
In mid-October, 1889, Haley and McCoy were captured in Martin County, Kentucky, returned to West Virginia, and murdered by a lynch mob at Green Shoal on October 24, 1889.
Ed showed great skill with the instrument and traveled throughout the Guyandotte and Big Sandy Valleys as a young man with other local musicians.
He played over WLW in Cincinnati and made occasional studio recordings for friends, such as for Doc Holbrook in Greenup, Kentucky.
Late in life, he made recordings for the family on a Wilcox-Gay disc-cutting machine brought home from the service by his stepson Ralph.
Beginning in 1990, bluegrass and folk musician John Hartford began researching the story of Haley's life and music.
The set included many previously unreleased cuts and features much improved audio quality when compared to the Rounder releases.
As part of Poage Landing Days, the City of Ashland, Kentucky, hosts an Ed Haley Memorial Fiddle Contest every year since 1996.
In 2000, John Hartford performed Ed Haley's arrangement of Dick Burnett's composition Man of Constant Sorrow for the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
In 2014, Brandon Kirk released Blood in West Virginia: Brumfield vs. McCoy (Pelican Publishing Company, Gretna, LA), which features young Ed Haley as a character in the story of the Lincoln County Feud.