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Born in 1942 in the upper Ottawa Valley near Haley’s Station and Cobden, Ed was an avid country music fan from an early age who soon began to display a phenomenal musical talent. Very few musicians are as adept as he became on so many different instruments: fiddle, pedal steel, piano, keyboards, electric and acoustic bass, lead guitar, mandolin, dobro, drums and five-string banjo! At age 12, he began playing fiddle, receiving considerable support and encouragement from his late uncle, Herb Roach, who bought him his first professional instrument.
Over the years, Ed appeared with Hall of Famer's Mac Beattie and his Ottawa Valley Melodiers and Joe Brown and The Happy Wanderers on many radio and TV shows aired on CBC, CHOV Pembroke, CJET Smiths Falls, and CHIP Radio in Fort Coulonge, and he was the drummer with the Happy Wanderers on the 1961 CJOH-TV Shor-Gas Barndance show. He backed numerous Grand Ole Opry stars and other Nashville artists touring Canada (Charlie Walker, Mac Wiseman, Tommy Cash, Barbara Fairchild, Del Reeves, Freddie Hart, Lucille Starr, George Hamilton IV and Ernie Ashworth) and was the fiddle player in a number of bands opening for Nashville headliners like Eddie Rabbitt, Little Jimmy Dickens, The Whites and Kitty Wells. Eddie had his own group as well - The Ed Pigeon Trio - and his abilities as a multi-instrumentalist made him a much-in-demand backup musician for bands playing traditional country, bluegrass, western swing and some jazz and blues.
For several years, he also operated his own 16-track digital and 8-track analog recording studio, releasing a dozen or so country albums for other artists and several of his own fiddle albums, the most recent being "Eddie Pigeon and His Magic Fiddle". In addition, he worked as a session musician at other local recording studios and gave weekly fiddle, guitar and piano lessons. In his "spare" time, he indulged his other passion as an antique car collector.
Sadly, Ed succumbed to cancer on July 2, 2002, at age 59, and the Valley lost an extremely talented musician as well as a good friend.
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