Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom

Traditional reel in G major from northeast Kentucky, associated primarily with legendary blind fiddler Ed Haley (1885–1951). The tune’s name traces to a story that fiddler Ed Morrison’s father heard Col. James Garfield (later President) whistling the tune in Kentucky in 1863 during the Civil War. Morrison learned it from that whistling and passed it to Ed Haley. The name “Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom” was applied specifically to distinguish this tune from the Arthur Smith’s Blackberry Blossom. Appears in the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes, sourced from Ed Haley; recorded on Haley’s Grey Eagle (Rounder 1131/1132, 1946 recordings) and by the Reed Island Rounders on Wolves in the Wood (1997).