Mr. Hayes gained his greatest fame playing in the band of Big Bad Smitty
and recording on Smitty's "Mean Disposition" CD issued on the
Adelphi/GENES label in America and the Black Magic label in Europe. He
also made a number of European tours with Smitty as well as playing on
the St. Louis Blues Festival, the Chicago Blues Festival, the King
Biscuit Blues Festival and at House of Blues in Boston and Tramps in New
York City.
More recently Rayburn Hayes has been the drummer for Big Clara & The Magnatones, traveling to the Blues Estafette in Utrecht, Holland with that group.
Rayburn Hayes was born in St. Louis, Missouri at St. Mary's hospital when it was down by the riverfront, April 16, 1943. He passed away from a heart attack on March 20, 1997. He had three children by his first wife, Gladys, who was local soul singer Willie Johnson's sister, Ray Jr., and two girls.
Ray's mother had 78 records which Ray used to play all the time. The music on them "caught him," and he wanted to play it, and to be "in that stuff"
"I cheated to get in music." A boy down the street was taking up drumming, Ray's best friend's brother. Ray would see him practicing. "I had a real good ear. I used to listen to that guy practice. He had a yellow book. Whatever he played, I could go home and play it."
Ray went into the school band amd took up drumming. "I knew that first book by heart Everybody thought I was a genius." Then he took private lessons for $6 an hour, to uphold the image everyone had of him. "My hands were fast enough to fool people" but "my brain wasn't. I still had enough edge to keep getting. praise. I dedicated myself to the drums." He wished he could play all the instruments.
His influences included legendary St. Louis drummer, Earthquake as well as Jerry Walker and Little Ben who had a band over in East St. Louis that played on streetcorners. "He was not a good drummer, I found out he was actually a piano player."
"I got my shuffle strictly from Earthquake, my drive from Jerry Walker. I'm not a 'solo drummer' but I actually solo all the way through the song, I picked that up from Little Ben." Ray worked hard at his day jobs and partied hard. When Big Clara met him he was working at a dry cleaner. "But he'd party all night."
"Me and a boy named Jimmy Davis, he was incredible. He's still around. In school he blew a clarinet. We formed a little band. We based it around me." Ray sang and was the leader of The Swinging Knights. They played talent shows with $25 prizes, and school engagements. Two of the guys in the band's fathers were in the Masons. They went down on Route 3 at the Cotton Club near the Red Top and played on the intermission, and the very next week the band that was there was playing on their intermission.
A guy named Little Allen, a singer, came and got Ray one night for a St. Louis club date. "I wasn't hip to the language. They told me 'We ain't makin' but five cents tonight.' I said "I don't mind playing for the fun of it but..." Finally one of them exlained it to me. We ended up playing that little place steady over in East St. Louis on Russell, one or two nights on the weekend.
"I had been knowing Albert King, I started hearing he wanted me to play with him. (Guitar player) Fred Grant told me that. I played for awhile with Johnny Floyd Smith, a saxophone player. He couldn't hardly talk, he had a raspy voice, but he was an educated man. He used to have a book filled up with good jobs. That's the band I was playing with when Little Milton asked me to play with him. I wanted to be in a band where if we get somewhere we all get there together. I didn't want to be Albert King's drummer, Little Milton's drummer. Every band I ever had, it had a name. Nobody's name out front. We all get there together or we didn't."
"I played with Walter Westbrook for years all around the city. It was all at black clubs. We did some white dances but no white clubs. Mostly we played at Bubba's in Eagle Park Illinois on Sundays. That was our main place. Eagle Park Slim played there many, many times."
"Bobby McClure and I went to school together, Lincoln High School. Walter and I had Tommy Johnson on guitar, a guy on sax called Roy, and Joe Enlo on sax. We'd make twelve dollars and fifty cents apiece. I hung out in a lot of places that people say is rough. I don't see that. I hung out in one place, the Ebony Club, they called it The Bucket Of Blood. I never seen it and that used to be my home away from home. When I wasn't home my wife knew to come there and find me. Right around the street from The Red Room. And I can count the fights I seen on one hand."
"I played a couple of places up in Lakeside near Eagle Park, Slicks, where Eugene Neal played. I sat in with him a number of times. There was another place right down the street from there I played at with Charles Lewis. It was fixed up like a junkyard. You'd have to drive in through a fence. It stayed open all night. I used to get off from playing on one of my gigs, I'd go sit in with somebody else and play all night for them. Whenever I'd find a place."
"I played a lot with Q.T. Macon. He came and got me from Little Allen and we played out at Frank's Tavern out at 21st and Division right behind Officer's funeral home over there. We had four nights, eight dollars a night. An awesome bass player named Forest, Joe Enlo again on sax, Bobby McNutt was the first singer. Q.T. was supposed to be singin' but he was the guitar player. Bobby McNutt was the best male vocalist around. The only guy he gave respect to was Vernon Guy. Bobby used to leave the band, leave us stranded, and go play with somebody else."
"I'm hard hearted. That's the reason I try to be quiet and think before I do things. 'Cause if McNutt had pulled that stunt on me he pulled on Q.T he'd have been gone. But Q.T. didn't want to sing, he wanted to be back in that crap room. Simple as that. We didn't miss no guitar with Forest Friarson on bass and Joe Enlo on sax. Forest had that bass slung like a shotgun down on his knee. It made it a whole lot easier. He could do it so fast. I had to keep up with this guy."
"I used to hang at the Harlem Club in Brooklyn. Jerry Walker was playing
there, the guy I told you I got my drive from. He had his own band. Eric
Foreman on bass. Chi Chi was singing with them. I haven't seen her
since I got that trophy that she won over Shirley Brown." Ray also
played at The Wagon Wheel and Chuck and Al's in Brooklyn.
"I played after that with Johnny Floyd Smith. And I played with David Dee for quite awhile. I traveled a little bit with him. I went to Springfield with him. David got us up there in Springfield. We played in this big old cold barn. After we finished the money went funny. Fred Grant was playin' with us then too. Fred told David 'You're going to pay me' or he was going to hurt him, I'll just put it like that. So I told David 'You can keep my money.' I had drove my car up there, carried a couple of guys. I jumped in my car and headed back to East St. Louis, I left everybody up there. It was so foggy that night you couldn't see the hood of your car but I was going home. I jumped behind a truck. If that truck had of ran off the road I would have too 'cause all I could see were these red lights. When I was able to see where I was at, that truck had me on St. Clair Avenue over in East St. Louis all the way back home. That's when I made up my mind I was out of David's band. I never played with him again."
"That's how I got out of David Dee's band. I got out of Q.T.'s band for a very similar reason. One day I was over to Frank's Tavern during the day time, just hanging around. We got to talkin' about different things and Frank told me how much he was payin' the band. I had never had no squawks until then. I brought it to Q.T. The only thing he could tell me was "I hired you, you didn't hire me." So I know what I got to do now."
"Then I played with a couple of guys that meant the world to me. I played, it was only one night, with Jimmy Reed, at a place across the street behind the Ebony Club. The way I got to play that night with Jimmy Reed, my girlfriend's uncle was managing the place, Ned Loves. I'm gonna get in free, you know, family. Jimmy Reed drove up that night, Spider Burke was sponsoring this thing that night. He had this big old black car. About five big old women got out and a young boy and Jimmy Reed. Spider Burke said, 'Well, where the band?' Jimmy Reed said 'You didn't hire no band, you hired Jimmy Reed and here I am.' Okay. David Dee was the band that played at Ned Love's at the time. All of a sudden somebody said 'There's a drummer,' speaking of me. So Jimmy Reed came up and asked me would I work with him. Ooh man, what's I'm gonna say, 'Yeah.' He told me how much money he was going to pay me. I ain't never made that much money on my job or playin' music. Okay. Now we still got problems, ain't got no bass player. This guy named Chick Chandler, he was a guitar player around town. Him and his old lady... Ticket's was $8. He gettin' ready to come in, paid his sixteen dollars. I said 'Hey, there's a bass player.' So we got to talkin' to Chick and Chick agreed. So me Chick and this young boy, he could play some guitar. He was a little dark small guy." [Probably Eddie Taylor.]
"We was gettin' down. We wan't playin Jimmy Reed's stuff. I knew Jimmy Reed's stuff. We was playin' dance music. Me, Chick and this young boy. We had the people goin'. Finally it's star time. He come down the aisle, people all around him. I found out why, probably holdin' him up. Finally got Jimmy Reed up to the bandstand. Sad sad story, but still my biggest moment. We started playin' his stuff. It was pitiful. He couldn't find his harmonica. He pissed me off so bad. He's so drunk he can't even play or sing. 'Young man, I'm gonna buy you a drink.' He put his arm around my shoulder for a crutch. We went up to the bar, I'm drinkin' Falstaff beer at the time for my beer. I order a Falstaff. He said 'No, give him a Budweiser.' I said I don't drink no Budweiser, I drink Falstaff. We went back and forth about five or six times. 'Cause I didn't get no Budweiser he didn't buy me a drink. I made a joke out of that. I said I'm a musician. I know where he's goin'. I'm probably gonna run into him down there and he's gonna buy me my drink. A guy on the job one day, he said 'If you're talkin' about where I think you're talkin' about you better make sure it's a real cold one.' We cracked up."
"Sonny Boy Williamson. Sonny Boy used to come over to a place called Lorraine's on 13th and Missouri Avenue (East St. Louis). It was a man. He'd sit in with us. He like my playing drums. "Don't Start Me Talkin'" At the time I was livin' in Illinois. I didn't know anything about St. Louis. Only thing I knew was Helen's Moonlight Bar. I saw Albert, Milton there. It was just me and Sonny Boy. He'd sing and play harmonica. We were doin' pretty good there for awhile. He used to sit in with us when I was with Johnny Floyd Smith at Lorraine's. He said he played with drummers and they always messed him up. He was older than me. I didn't want to hang out with him. I wan't into drinkin too much and that's what his life seemed like it was all about. It was just the music part of it. I didn't want to run around with him after hours."
"I got fed up with traveling overseas with Smitty. You know I was mostly at the hotel. I was sick a lot of those times, didn't nobody know it. I tried to keep myself together for the shows. That's the best move that I made, gettin' in the thing with Smitty, 'cause maybe, it's gonna do what I wanted to do for me. If I hadn't got with Smitty this fantasy I had wouldn't come true. Not on a big scale. I don't want to be famous. I know how hard it is doin' what I been doin' all my life. Music ain't no easy thing."
"I wasn't never the drummer I wanted to be. You don't know how hard it is for me. If I have fun it'll just come to me cause I'm doin' something automatically. But I can't do it all the time without thinking about and being concerned about what's coming out of me. Sometimes I hold my breath through a whole song 'cause I don't want anything to go wrong. I had to work hard. You just don't know. I used to go down in my basement and keep the neighbors up tryin' to get myself together."
"I didn't know Big Clara could sing like she does. I've known her for many years. Clara's band, there's a lot can be done but don't nobody seem to want to contribute. I'm too far down the line. Just like my teenage band. They'd hit a wrong note. We'd stop. Play that note. Play it again. They was mad at me but I didn't care. When they played the passage and come to that note they'd play it right automatically. I believe if the rest of us would have more enthusiasm in what we're doin' with Clara I could contribute more. I got mixed emotions."
Rayburn's hearty renditions of "Mess Around" and "Party 'Til The Break Of Day" were standards in any Big Clara & The Magnatones show, and his rendition of "Goodnight Sweetheart Goodnight" concluded every show.
Rayburn Hayes made his final trip to Europe with Big Clara & The Magnatones in November of 1996.
His dreams of musical immortality were more than realized when he recorded on Big Bad Smitty's "Mean Disposition" CD, and more so by the inclusion of Smitty's version of Little Milton's song "Lonely Man" on the French Sony 3-CD set titled "La Route du Blues."
Rayburn Hayes' drumming appears there in the company of all the blues greats from Blind Lemon Jefferson, Memphis Minnie, Big Bill Broonzy, Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson to Jimmy Reed, Slim Harpo, B.B. King, Little Milton, Albert King, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, Slim Harpo, Arthur Crudup, Chuck Berry, Koko Taylor, sonny Boy WIlliamson, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and Albert Collins.