Friday, October 8, 2010

Walker Hayes Finds 'Reason to Rhyme'

Filed under: Country News, New Faces


Raised in a uniquely blended 'Brady Bunch'-style household of four siblings and four step-siblings (he was the ninth), Walker Hayes says he has always been different. "My parents once caught me conducting Beethoven's Fifth Symphony," he confesses. Growing up, he also experienced a blend of interests, with half his friends involved in music and the other half in sports, while he participated in both.

Having earned a degree in general music with an emphasis on piano in just two years at Alabama's Birmingham-Southern College, Walker then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the summer of 2004, he headed to Nashville. When Autumn House, Senior Vice President of A&R (artists and repertoire) at Capitol Records heard him on a demo tape pitched to her for Keith Urban, she fell in love with his voice and his songwriting, bringing him to the immediate attention of Capitol President Mike Dungan. Walker was offered a record deal that evening, but the singer whose voice is as warm, confident and inviting as a Gulf Shore breeze made the rather surprising move of saying to Autumn, "I thought you had too many males on your roster," to which she replied, "We do have a lot of male acts on our roster but not like you!"

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