Musicians You Should Know: Roland Hayes

Basic Facts

Born: June 3, 1887, Curryville, Georgia

Died: January 1, 1977, Boston, Massachusetts

Type of Performer: Vocalist (tenor), composer

Genre: Classical

Awards:

NAACP Springarn Medal, 1924
Eight honorary degrees
Posthumous inductee to the George Music Hall of Fame, 1991

About Roland Hayes

Roland Hayes was born in Curryville, Georgia, in 1887, to former slaves William and Fanny Hayes. He got his musical start singing in church and with a group he formed called the Silver-Toned Quartet. Despite his mother's wishes that he become a minister, he attended Fisk University in Nashville to study voice in 1905. He supported himself by waiting tables, but he was expelled before he could graduate (the reason is not clear, but one prevailing theory is that he got in trouble for singing with an unauthorized group for money). He decided to relocate to Boston, where he thought he would have a better chance at becoming a full-time musician than in the segregated South. In Boston, he recorded a couple of albums using Columbia Records' personal recording service and toured with his new group, The Hayes Trio. Despite his popularity, he had trouble securing professional management as a Black man.

In 1920, Hayes travelled to London, where he finally found success after recitals at Wigmore Hall and the Royal Chapel of the Savoy. He toured Europe before returning to the United States in 1923 under the management of one of the same companies that had turned him away several years prior. Although some Southern venues would not book him, he eventually gave a concert in Atlanta to an integrated audience. For the next twenty years, he continued to give recitals and perform with orchestras both domestically and internationally, although he was forced to quit touring in Europe during the 1930s due to the political climate there. His recitals were notable for their closing section of spirituals. On January 31, 1931, Hayes gave a recital at the new Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., and demanded beforehand that the audience be desegregated. This led to the venue instituting a "white artists only" rule that resulted in a highly publicized controversy between Marian Anderson and the Daughters of the American Revolution eight years later.

After his daughter was born in the early 1930s, Hayes cut back on his performances. He taught privately and he continued to give annual recitals at Carnegie Hall and at Fisk (which eventually awarded him an honorary degree that was denied him so many years previously). He spent more time with his family on his Georgia farm (the same farm that his parents were tenant farmers on when he was born), and in 1942, he published his biography. He also published a collection of spiritual settings in 1948. He retired in 1973 and died in 1977 in Boston. The Roland W. Hayes Museum opened in Calhoun, Georgia, in 2000, and in 2013, his recording of "Were You There" was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in its National Recording Registry.

Listen

"Were You There," spiritual, arr. Roland Hayes (1940)

"Du Bist Die Ruh," Schubert

Music Notes from AMUSE

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