Biography
Raised in Bethel Acres, Oklahoma, Wade Hayes absorbed country music from an early age because his father Don performed professionally in bars and honky tonks throughout the state. The exposure prompted him to take up the mandolin as a boy before switching to guitar at age eleven. Those early experiences with honky tonk, outlaw country, and bluegrass shaped a distinctive approach that he refined while still young.
Before reaching his teens, Don secured a contract with an independent Nashville label and relocated the family to Music City. The label collapsed within a year, stranding the Hayes family financially and forcing a return to Oklahoma, where Wade joined his father’s band Country Heritage on guitar and backup vocals. After finishing high school he attended three colleges yet left academia upon watching Ricky Skaggs at the 1991 Country Music Awards. He moved to Nashville, cut demos, and concentrated on his own songs.
There he began collaborating with Chick Rains, who secured an audition with producer Don Cook (the Mavericks, Brooks & Dunn). Cook signed on to work with Hayes and introduced him to Columbia Records executives.
The singer’s debut album, Old Enough to Know Better, appeared in 1995 and scored an immediate success when its title track reached number one. The Academy of Country Music nominated Hayes for Top New Male Vocalist of the Year that same year. His follow-up, On a Good Night, arrived in summer 1996 and moved steadily despite falling short of the first album’s commercial peak.
When the Wrong One Loves You Right came out in early 1998 and produced the Top 10 single “The Day That She Left Tulsa (In a Chevy)” before its chart momentum faded. After Highways and Heartaches surfaced in 2000, Hayes left Monument Records. In 2003 he formed the duo McHayes with Mark McClurg; the pair recorded for Universal South, but the single “It Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Love You” stalled at number 41, prompting the label to shelve the project and the duo to disband in 2004.
Hayes remained out of the spotlight for four years before joining Randy Owen’s touring band as guitarist in 2008. He issued the self-released Place to Turn Around in 2009, yet his progress halted in 2011 after a colon cancer diagnosis. Following successful treatment he returned in 2015 with Go Live Your Life on Conabor Records, which also released Old Country Song two years later.
Before reaching his teens, Don secured a contract with an independent Nashville label and relocated the family to Music City. The label collapsed within a year, stranding the Hayes family financially and forcing a return to Oklahoma, where Wade joined his father’s band Country Heritage on guitar and backup vocals. After finishing high school he attended three colleges yet left academia upon watching Ricky Skaggs at the 1991 Country Music Awards. He moved to Nashville, cut demos, and concentrated on his own songs.
There he began collaborating with Chick Rains, who secured an audition with producer Don Cook (the Mavericks, Brooks & Dunn). Cook signed on to work with Hayes and introduced him to Columbia Records executives.
The singer’s debut album, Old Enough to Know Better, appeared in 1995 and scored an immediate success when its title track reached number one. The Academy of Country Music nominated Hayes for Top New Male Vocalist of the Year that same year. His follow-up, On a Good Night, arrived in summer 1996 and moved steadily despite falling short of the first album’s commercial peak.
When the Wrong One Loves You Right came out in early 1998 and produced the Top 10 single “The Day That She Left Tulsa (In a Chevy)” before its chart momentum faded. After Highways and Heartaches surfaced in 2000, Hayes left Monument Records. In 2003 he formed the duo McHayes with Mark McClurg; the pair recorded for Universal South, but the single “It Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Love You” stalled at number 41, prompting the label to shelve the project and the duo to disband in 2004.
Hayes remained out of the spotlight for four years before joining Randy Owen’s touring band as guitarist in 2008. He issued the self-released Place to Turn Around in 2009, yet his progress halted in 2011 after a colon cancer diagnosis. Following successful treatment he returned in 2015 with Go Live Your Life on Conabor Records, which also released Old Country Song two years later.
Albums
Highways & Heartaches
2000
When The Wrong One Loves You Right
1998
On A Good Night
1996
Old Enough To Know Better
1995
Singles
