Biography

Clarence Leonard Hayes was a jazz vocalist, banjoist and guitarist born November 14, 1908 in Caney, Kansas. He lived in Parsons, Kansas for a short time, and the town is the subject of his song "The Parsons, Kansas Blues": / Listen to it here. He worked always as a professional musician, turning up in San Francisco in 1926. By 1927 he was a regular on the music scene there. He performed regularly on radio in San Francisco until the 1950s when live music came to be replaced with recordings.