When Willie Hayes began playing drums in nightclubs around Chicago, he was still a grade school student and had to sit in storage rooms until it was time to perform because he was too young to even be in the club.
He’d peek out to see what was going on. The children of other musicians occasionally kept him company.
His talent was clear from a young age.
Mr. Hayes performed on a television talent show when he was 9 and within a few years became the drummer for legendary Chicago bluesman Magic Sam.
He also played with Mighty Joe Young and Koko “The Queen of Chicago Blues” Taylor by the time he was 14. At age 16, he went on the road with Magic Sam.
He was assigned the nickname Willie “The Touch” Hayes by Luther Allison, who gave Mr. Hayes a bass drum inscribed with the moniker.
Mr. Hayes died Nov. 5 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident three days earlier not far from his home. He was 73.
Mr. Hayes, who focused on blues, jazz, funk and R&B, also played with Big Twist and the Mellow Fellows, Son Seals, Lurrie Bell, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, the Temptations, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, to name a few. He also did a stint with Ike and Tina Turner.
“Music is all about feeling; that’s what it’s about,” Mr. Hayes said in a 2013 interview with Blues Blast magazine. “And then when people hear it, they know it’s coming from the heart and they go, ‘Damn! They’re playin’ that s---, man.’ ”
He also played in the soul band South Side Movement, which opened for Al Green and James Brown and scored a hit with “I’ve Been Watching You.”
A 1982 live appearance with Koko Taylor was turned into an album, “Blues Explosion,” that won a Grammy.
Mr. Hayes appeared in bit parts in movies that starred the A-listers, such as “Thief,” “Ali,” “Hardball” and “Road to Perdition.” He posed with stars Will Smith, James Caan, Tom Hanks and Keanu Reeves in photos displayed prominently at his home.
Mr. Hayes appeared on many blues albums released by Delmark Records.
“He was a first-call gig and session drummer,” said Julia Miller, CEO of Delmark.
“Whenever anybody said ‘Oh s---, we need a drummer,’ he was first guy you’d call,” said keyboardist and pal Johnny Iguana.
Mr. Hayes, who began drumming when he was 4, was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame in 2014.
“I just can’t picture anything but laughter when I think of him,” Iguana said. “Booming laughter arose from him. He was always looking for ways to enjoy life through laughter. I remember touring with him and Junior Wells and we’d be in the van and he’d point at people outside and imagine what they were saying and he’d be doing all kinds of voices and faces.”
Mr. Hayes was known for being dapper.
“Whenever he took the stage he was always looking immaculate. I was like, ‘How many suits does this guy have?,’ and always with a matching handkerchief,” Iguana said.
“He had one drum solo he’d do, he threw his sticks up in air, he was twirling the sticks, looking this way and that, laughing. He turned into a little kid on stage, especially during his solo, like a kid who opened up his Christmas present in the closet early, just very joyful and infectious,” Iguana said.
In recent years Mr. Hayes performed with his own group, the Willie Hayes Band.
Mr. Hayes, who sometimes wore a black baseball hat with white lettering that said “The Touch,” also worked in the engineering department at Ascension Saint Alexius Hospital in Hoffman Estates until he retired earlier this year.
He last performed on stage at the 2022 Chicago Blues Festival.
“He really had a remarkable career,” said Linda Cain, editor of Chicago Blues Guide. “I remember he said he’d be in the studio and someone turned on a metronome, and he’d be like, ‘Turn that thing off. I don’t need a metronome. My foot is the metronome.’ He had all kinds of stories from being on the road and made friends wherever he went.”
Mr. Hayes was born Aug. 20, 1950, in Clarksdale, Arkansas, and moved to Chicago at a young age. He was one of 10 siblings.
He was raised in Lawndale and attended Farragut High School, where he played with several older classmates in a band called The Mandells.
One gig the band played in Peoria on Thanksgiving didn’t end well.
“The guy gave us a roll of cash but they were all $1 bills,” former bandmate Lorenzo Clemons recalled. “We were like, ‘We’re not violent people, even if we are from the West Side,’ and the guy was like, ‘Hold on, wait here. I’ll go rob someone.’ And we were like, ‘No, don’t do that.”
Mr. Hayes, who was a black belt in karate, suffered enormous grief in recent years.
His namesake son, Willie Hayes Jr., died in 2002 at age 11 from leukemia, and another son, Robert Calvin, died in 2019 at age 38 from stomach cancer, according to Mr. Hayes’ daughter Tiana Hayes. Mr. Hayes’ wife, Debra Hayes, also passed away earlier this year.
Mr. Hayes regularly posted about his love for each of them on Facebook.
“He was a loving father, he did everything he was supposed to as a father,” Tiana Hayes said.
Mr. Hayes is also survived by one other daughter, Toyia Howery-Phillips, his son William Jenkins and eight grandchildren.
Services have been held.
