It's still out there.....You can feel it when you drive the backroads of America, or hear it when you tune in a small-town country radio station, you can touch it when you buy those "classic" CDs but, best of all, you can live it when you enter the small clubs and honky-tonks that still dot the land. Like the ghost of Christmas past, the spirit of "traditional"country music lingers, lapping at the edges of country music's present, a constant reminder of how things were (how they ought to be?)

The men and women who keep our country heritage alive inhabit these clubs and they are as important to country music as the biggest stars you'll find playing the Grand Ole Opry. They've traveled many different roads to get to where they are today. Some look to Nashville but most don't. They measure their successes in other ways: in their marriages, families, businesses and how they live their lives. They play for the love of the music and the satisfaction of bringing it to others. One such performer is Don Hayes, musician, and father of country music artist Wade Hayes.

A Musical Family

Don Hayes grew up in a family in which making music was a part of life. "My folks were all musicians. My dad was a fiddle player and used to play at barn dances. We have an old fiddle up at the house that belonged to my grand-dad. He used to carry it to dances in a sack. One time a mule stepped on it, and he had to send it to Arkansas to get repaired, but he was always playing at the dances."

"I remember when I was a kid, going to see Hank Thompson perform in Oklahoma City. It was a live show, done from a furniture store. In those days the Mathis Brothers used to sponsor a local TV show called Country Social and you never knew who was going to show up. Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, George Jones, they all played that show."

"I was the youngest child in my family and my father was 42 when I was born so he didn't play as much when I was growing up as he had earlier on but we always had music in the house.' Faded Love' is my favorite country music song, it was my father's favorite also and we played it together. You knew when the family got together that they were going to play music - it was just something that we did. I had four cousins, two boys and two girls that could sing four-part harmony and they were so good! One of my cousins was offered a radio show in Tulsa back when they used to do live shows, though he never did take the job."

Beginnings

Don was about 13 when he started playing music but he did not pursue a musical career for awhile. "There was this girl I used to see and I really wanted to meet her. One night my friend and I were out driving around and I saw her and pointed her out. My friend said to me, 'that's my sister!' and I wanted to slap him because I'd been talking about her for months." It was about a year after meeting Trisha that the couple wed and settled into family life. It was a few short years later that Don decided he wanted to try the music business.

"In 1970 Merle Haggard won entertainer of the year. Trisha and I were sitting on the back porch listening to a radio playback of the awards show and that is when we decided that we were going to give the music business a try." Don had always been self-employed in the construction business so he could take time off to play music whenever he needed to. "We were working some circuits, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming and Kansas." Don and his band, Country Heritage, also performed during live shows with Billy Parker at KVOO, "Billy had the night show on KVOO and he'd play our records and we'd be on the show with him. It was a lot of fun - and much different than it is now. For years, we were the house band for a place in Henryetta, OK called the Sundown Ballroom that used to pull in a lot of major acts."

"There used to be a live show in Tulsa that came on at 6:00 in the morning and we'd play the show and then I'd come home and go to work. I've worked with Gene Watson, Johnny Rodriguez, Jack Greene, Jeannie Seeley, Kitty Wells, Boxcar Willie and others. We used to open for these acts at local "Opry" shows like the Grapevine Opry in Texas and Country Music Review and similar shows. Willie Nelson was on the shows quite a few times. We worked a lot with Jody Miller."

Nashville and After

In the early 1980s Don decided to try his luck in Nashville and the story of what happened there has been well-documented. Soon after arriving, the family found out that the record company Don had signed with had gone broke. "We got to Nashville and that was supposed to be the big deal but the record company going broke left us out on a limb. Trisha had sacrificed a lot and she was getting tired of it. Those were really hard times. We didn't want to give up and come back to Oklahoma but we really didn't have a choice because the kids were so miserable down there and we were miserable and the economy was in real bad shape. Seeing everybody unhappy with it, I got unhappy too"

For a time, after returning to Oklahoma, Don gave up on the music business entirely. "I had made a vow when I started this that if we didn't get a break by the time I was 40, I was going to try something else. When I turned 40 and didn't have anything really working for me, I just kind of laid it down. For several years I didn't play music at all. For 12-15 years we'd been after it so hard. It's difficult to make a living when you're struggling to be a musician because it's hard to hold down a steady job and still be able to pick up and go play music. When you get to the point where it's destructive and you're just sick and tired of it, it's just not worth it anymore and you can let it go. I could have gotten back to working the circuits again but I was burned out on it." Don had always done construction and been self-employed and he now decided to concentrate on his construction business, something he knew he could make a living at, something that would give him a future.

A Son Follows in his Father's Footsteps

Don and Trisha's son Wade, even at a young age, was on a path that would take him to Nashville just as his father had once gone. "Wade was 12 when he got his first guitar and he started playing with me when he was 14. Ever since Wade was a little bitty guy, when I'd load up to go on the road he'd be mad at me because he couldn't go. As soon as he got big enough to play, I started taking him with me. All the way through high school he played four nights a week."

When Wade made the decision to go to Nashville, his father knew it was something he had to do. "He was miserable here and he had gone as far as he could go with his music, he could play circles around people. I was glad and I was sad at the same time. One of the hardest days I remember was when he loaded up and left, it was tough watching him go because I knew what was down there. I was pretty sure he'd be okay because Wade was always pretty level-headed. I worried about him losing sleep more than anything else because he had such ambition that he would just push himself."

Though Wade's parents inevitably worried about him they also knew he had what it took to succeed. "Wade went to Nashville to be a sideman, he just wanted to play guitar and sing harmony and I knew he wouldn't have any trouble with that", says Don. "Wade was always different, it's one of those feelings you have that can't be explained. We knew Wade would be successful at something but I knew he could do it in music because he had that much talent. He learned a lot by my mistakes. It was as hard on him as it was on me and his mom when we went through all that stuff. Because things have worked out so well for Wade, I don't regret what I did."

Full Circle

Don Hayes, once again, plays music, keeping the sounds of Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Gary Stewart, Gene Watson and others alive. "I quit (playing music) in 1988. Wade graduated in '87 and I quit altogether. He went and played for another band, eventually putting his own group together. We'd go watch Wade play, not very often, but when he had his group together, I'd get up and sing with him every once in a while. That kind of kept me involved in music. Once it's in your bones, it's hard to get rid of it. A couple years ago Wade and I were fooling around one night and drove out to a club with some friends and I sat in with a band there. A couple weeks later their lead singer asked to have a weekend off and they wanted me to fill in. Soon I was playing for the club once a month."

So Don now fills in at a local club, one he helped build, one weekend a month. He is backed up by the house band but still sees his original Country Heritage band members. "Steve Story is a fiddle player with Ricky Van Shelton and Ray Price. He started with me when I was thirteen. Gary Ledford is my partner in the construction business, we've been partners for some 20 years now. Mike Ragland (drums) is playing gospel music and just toured in Canada over the summer, and Tommy Carpenter, the bass player, is still around playing with different people. They were a lot of fun and we had a lot of good times."

Life is Full

It's painful when a dream dies. Some people go down hard. They become bitter or alienated, never able again to find a focus. Others make peace with what will never be, and are able to forge a new happiness from buried regrets. Don Hayes is a man who has found contentment in life. His words ring true when he speaks of his pride in his son's career and the fullness of his family life.

Don has quoted Wade as saying,"country is something that you are, not something that you're trying to be." He himself believes " country music has always been the people's music." If one of those people is Don Hayes, then everyone in the country music "community" can feel proud.

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