Clancy Hayes - The Swinging Minstrel
HARDINGE SIMPOLE is delighted to announce the publication of
Clancy Hayes - The Swinging Minstrel
Chris Reid with Hal Smith - Biography & Discography
Clancy Hayes spent a lifetime in music as a vocalist, instrumentalist and composer – writing songs for Hoagy Carmichael, Bing Crosby and others. A seventh son of Welsh
descent, Clancy entertained audiences for over 50 years- from the age of seven until illness tragically ended his professional career in 1970. Music was his profession and
his hobby; he made countless private recordings with jazz friends including Jack and Charlie Teagarden, Lee Wiley, Burt Bales and Don Ewell.
Clancy also became involved in jazz and played with Lu Watters’ Yerba Buena Jazz Band whose 1941 records sparked world-wide interest in Traditional Jazz; in the wartime
YBJB he played with jazz legend Bunk Johnson and Benny Strickler. Clancy worked with NBC radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1928 headlining dozens of
programmes over the next twenty years. His radio days finished in 1950 when he became featured vocalist with Bob Scobey’s Frisco Band.
So popular were their recordings, he received the Down Beat critics’ award for New Star Jazz Singer in 1954.
Clancy left the Scobey band in 1960 and worked as a ‘single’ throughout the decade. Based at Turk Murphy and Pete Clute’s Earthquake McGoon’s in San Francisco, he
frequently travelled the USA to perform as a single, band member or guest with some true jazz greats including Yank Lawson, Bud Freeman, Ralph Sutton, Bob Wilber,
Nappy Trottier, Jim Dapogny, Raymond Burke, Tommy Gwaltney and many others. Clancy’s wonderful vocal style, rhythm and phrasing made him Bing Crosby’s
favourite traditional jazz singer.
480 pages
Published
20th Sept 2025
Hardback ISBN 978-1-84382-236-3. With 138 coloured and 110 black & white illustrations - £45
Paperback ISBN 978-1-84382-237-0. With 248 black & white illustrations - £25.00
Hardinge Simpole an imprint of Zeticula Ltd.,Unit 13, 44-46 Morningside Road,Edinburgh, EH10 4BF, UK
www.hardingesimpole.co.uk