Written by Randye L. Jones for www.afrovoices.com
>excerpted<
Tenor and composer Roland Hayes was born in Curryville, Georgia, on June 3, 1887. His parents, William and Fanny Hayes, were ex-slaves who worked as tenant farmers to raise their seven children. When William Hayes died from a work-related injury in 1898, Fanny–who Roland called Angel Mo’–moved her family to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Because he had to help support his family, young Hayes was only able to complete the fifth grade. He worked in an iron foundry, where he was badly injured when a conveyor belt pulled him into the machinery.
His mother made certain that he attended church regularly. Hayes sang in the church choir and with a group he formed called the Silver-Toned Quartet. He studied voice with local choral director Arthur Calhoun. During this time, the young man decided that he wanted to make singing a career:
“I happened upon a new method for making iron sash-weights,” he said, “and that got me a little raise in pay and a little free time. At that time I had never heard any real music, although I had had some lessons in rhetoric from a backwoods teacher in Georgia. But one day a pianist came to our church in Chattanooga, and I, as a choir member, was asked to sing a solo with him. The pianist liked my voice, and he took me in hand and introduced me to phonograph records by Caruso. That opened the heavens for me. The beauty of what could be done with the voice just overwhelmed me.”
Although Angel Mo’ had been the one who introduced spirituals to Hayes, she was vehemently opposed to him wasting the money to study voice privately. Instead, she wanted her son to become a minister. Despite her opposition, Hayes could not ignore the siren call. In addition to getting vocal coaching, he undertook academic studies to catch up for the lost years of schooling.
With the help of supporters, Hayes raised $50.00 and left home with the plan of attending Oberlin. However, he ran out of money and ended up as a student in Fisk University’s preparatory program in 1905. In addition to his music courses, he sang with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and he supported himself as a waiter. Just before he was to graduate, he was informed by the teacher who had sponsored his studies that he was going to be expelled from school. Years later, the school presented Hayes with an honorary doctoral music degree–one of eight he received over his career.
…Hayes spent most of the next two decades giving vocal recitals and performing with orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. It is estimated that his income for 1924 approached $100,000 (according to the Historical Statistics of the United States : Colonial Times to 1957, the per capita income in 1920 was $740.00). He was given a hero’s welcome when her sang in the Soviet Union in 1928. Unlike bass-baritone Paul Robeson–who made his first visit to the country six years later, Hayes did not embrace socialism as an alternative to America’s political disenfranchisement of African Americans. He stopped touring in Europe in the 1930′s because the changes in the political climate were no longer friendly to a black man.
(click here to read the rest of this great story)
=================
Wow! Especially that last paragraph!
Sphere: Related Content
