Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Clancy Hayes was born Clarence Leonard Hayes on November 14, 1908 in Caney, Kansas. As a child he learned the drums before switching to guitar and banjo.

Being part of a vaudeville troupe in the Midwest after 1923, Hayes  lived in San Francisco from 1927. He became more popular in the 1930s through radio and club performances. From 1938 to 1940 he played in a big band led by Lu Watters, after which he spent a decade with the Yerba Buena Jazz Band, playing rhythm banjo and, on occasion, drums.

Spending almost all of the 1950s singing with Bob Scobey’s band, in the 1960s he led his own bands, which also recorded for various labels. Hayes played with the Firehouse Five Plus Two, Turk Murphy, and a group that evolved into the World’s Greatest Jazz Band. As a vocalist he was noted for his straightforward singing of ballads and his flamboyant delivery of livelier songs.

Banjoist and vocalist Clancy Hayes, who recorded eleven albums as a leader and six with Bob Scobey, died in San Francisco, California on March 13, 1972.

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