Hayes not gabby but there’s still a song in his heart
Even at age 91, longtime soap opera star Bill Hayes was able to sing his way into the hearts of his audience Wednesday afternoon at the Putnam County Public Library in Greencastle.
And why not? After all, Hayes warbled his way into the hearts of coeds before graduating from DePauw University in 1947.
Then during the coonskin cap craze of the 1950s, Hayes sang his way into the hearts of America with “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” reaching No. 1 on the Billboard magazine charts. And he even sang his way into the heart of Susan Seaforth Hayes, whom he married in 1974 in a life-immitates-art moment since the two of them had been the supercouple Doug and Julie Williams on the long-running serial (51 years on the air) “Days of Our Lives.”
In the midst of a three-day residency this week at DePauw, Bill and Susan Hayes visited the local library to reminisce and talk about (and sell) their collaborative books, including the memoir, “Like Sands Through the Hourglass,” and a historical novel, “The Tempest.”
Susan told the story behind the books and the writing efforts, while Bill punctuated the process with anecdotes and even serenaded the audience of 60 (about 90 percent women of a certain age) with a tune or two.
He recalled visiting DePauw from his Harvey, Ill., home while his brother was attending school in Greencastle, and discovering that DPU men were practicing four-part harmony in order to serenade the college coeds who in those days had to be locked in the dorm by 10 p.m. on weeknights, 11 on Fridays and by midnight on Saturdays.
Calling it “brilliant and beautiful,” Hayes said it was a big reason he came to DePauw to double-major in English and music while pledging Lambda Chi Alpha.
That discussion launched him into a bit of “When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob-Bob Bobbin’ Along),” a 1926 Al Jolson hit and a later Bing Crosby staple.
Wild applause erupted from the library’s Kiwanis Room with no librarian about to shush the crowd.
Susan Hayes admitted when she heard Bill singing that song from an NBC rehearsal hall as she walked through, “I fell in love.”
“That positive sound from that positive and warm guy?” she continued, shrugging her shoulders and smiling, “I had to have him.”
They’ve been married 42 years now.
“Here we are,” Susan added, “Bill’s 91. I’m 73, and we’re plowing on.”
They are in the midst of writing a sequel to their novel, “The Tempest,”seven years in the making as a labor of love.
“If we hadn’t been interrupted by being called back to ‘Days of Our Lives’ -- Yea! -- we would have been farther along,” she said of the sequel.
Meanwhile, their memoir, Bill said, is “a story of love that’s true, love of a relationship, love of career and love of life.”
Susan explained that they wrote separately, each heading off in their bathrobes daily to separate corners of their home. Later they would “meet in the middle and say, so that’s how you remember it, huh?”
She called the process of writing the two books “the most bonding experience we’ve ever had in our marriage.”
More than 60 years ago, Bill Hayes made quite the splash as the most successful of about five singers who released “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” (collectively selling 10 million records). Hayes’ version was No. 1 on the Billboard charts from March 26-April 23, 1955 after Walt Disney turned the Crockett story into a three-part adventure on his “Disneyland” ABC-TV series.
In the Dec. 15, 1954 premiere episode, Fess Parker (who later released his own version) is shown performing the song on a log cabin set in frontiersman clothes.
As luck would have it, sitting at home watching was Archie Bleyer, who served as Arthur Godfrey’s musical director and started his own record label, Cadence Records.
Taking an immediate liking to the song, Bleyer checked to see who might have recorded or licensed the song.
Told it “was just background music,” Bleyer eagerly snapped up the music and lyrics and called to gauge Hayes’ interest.
“He said, ‘I’ve got a song for you,’” Hayes recalled Wednesday. “‘Come by my office.”
Hayes did, learning that nobody apparently seemed interested in recording a song whose lyrics were already on lips of every adolescent boy in America.
Bleyer asked if Hayes could record it that night, and he said yes, getting six hours to study the music while Bleyer figured out the arrangements.
“We met again that night about 10 o’clock,” Hayes said, recalling how he, two guitars, a jew’s harp player and a three-boy choir sat in a circle in the studio to record.
“We did one take,” the veteran performer said, putting up one forefinger to punctuate the point, “and that was it.
“It’s a great song. If I sang it for you now, you could all sing it with me.”
So he did, singing the familiar ...
Born on a mountain top in Tennessee
Greenest state in the land of the free
Raised in the woods so he knew ev’ry tree
Kilt him a b‘are when he was only three
Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.
... and as predicted, virtually the entire library audience sang along with him.
Both Bill and Susan Hayes smiled, knowingly nodding their heads to what was transpiring in front of them.
Yes, and those are the days of their lives ...