Will S. Hays
Songwriter
William Shakespeare Hays was a Kentucky newspaperman and prolific 19th-century parlor songwriter whose sentimental songs entered the oral tradition of Appalachia and resurfaced as bluegrass and old-time standards in the 20th century. He is credited with more than 350 published songs that reportedly sold roughly 20 million copies of sheet music in his lifetime — an output rivaled by few of his American contemporaries.
- Born William Shakespeare Hays on July 19, 1837, in Louisville, Kentucky.
- Showed musical aptitude as a child, took violin lessons, and earned the nickname “the boy poet” at Georgetown College and Hanover College.
- His first published song, “Little Ones at Home,” appeared while he was a student at Hanover.
- Spent his working life as a journalist with Louisville newspapers including the Democrat and the Courier-Journal — covering river commerce on the Ohio (he held a steamboat captain’s license) while writing songs in his spare time.
- “Mollie Darling” (1871) was his biggest hit, with sheet-music sales over 1 million; other parlor songs that survived in the bluegrass and old-time repertoire include “The Little Old Cabin in the Lane” (1871), “We Parted by the River” (1866), “I’ll Remember You, Love, in My Prayers” (1869), “Jimmie Brown the Newsboy” (1875), and “You’ve Been a Friend to Me” (1879).
- Many Hays songs were later passed down anonymously and re-collected as folk songs — the Carter Family, Flatt & Scruggs, Bill Monroe, and others recorded his compositions decades after his death.
- Married Belle McCullough in 1865.
- Died July 23, 1907, in Louisville, four days after his 70th birthday. Buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.
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I'll Remember You Love In My PrayersPlay Requests (1972)
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I'll Remember You Love In My PrayersSo Long So Wrong (1997)
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Jimmie Brown the NewsboySingle: Jimmy Brown the Newsboy (1951)
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Log Cabin in the LaneSingle: Budded Roses (1959)