Tommy Hays, Bakersfield's elder statesman of western swing and country guitar, dies at 93
May 15—Friends and fans remember Tommy Hays as a gentleman and a gentle man. But he had a mischievous side, too, and a gleam in his eye that made you think he knew something that you didn't. And he probably did.
A working guitarist, band leader and vocalist since his arrival in Bakersfield in 1947, Hays would become a living link between the western music of the late-1940s and the electrified country and honky-tonk sounds of the 1950s and '60s that would give rise to what we now know as the Bakersfield Sound.
Many thought he would live almost forever, but the music lover and music maker died early Saturday at a local hospital after a heart problem worsened. He was 93.
"Tommy looked amazing on the outside. He never looked near his age. But he was 93 on the inside," said his wife, Kim Hays, who was with him for more than 46 years.
"He was our Tommy all the way to the end," she said of her beloved husband.
When word got out about Hays' passing Saturday, social media was soon filled with sorrow, sympathy and praise for the unique musician.
"For us, Tommy's passing represents the end of an era for Bakersfield's country music," said Zane Adamo, instrumentalist, vocalist and leader of the Soda Crackers, a Bakersfield-based band that plays much of the western swing and Bakersfield Sound music that Hays championed.
"Tommy was the last musician and frontman from the earliest days of Bakersfield country music," Adamo said in a text, echoing the band's Facebook tribute to Hays.
"We were fortunate enough to have Tommy join us for our first two editions of our 'Pioneers of The Bakersfield Sound' concert series, and Tommy was scheduled to perform alongside us for our third show coming up in July," Adamo said.
They know their friend will still be with them in spirit, he added.
Reached Monday, author and music historian Scott B. Bomar agreed that Hays was the last of the Bakersfield musicians who straddled both sides of the development of the Bakersfield Sound.
But measuring Hays' influence is difficult.
"Music history is so rooted in recording," Bomar said.
One of the interesting things about Tommy Hays is that he didn't record much at all, Bomar said, especially in the early days when changes were coming fast to the music itself and how it was delivered.
From a historian's perspective, there's not a lot of material to pull from, particularly during the Bakersfield Sound era.
"But it's a reminder how important live music in Bakersfield really is," Bomar said.
For every musician working in recording studios, there were likely others honing their chops live in the taverns and bars, influencing or experimenting with the development of the sounds that became available to them with the advancements in guitar amplification.
Bands got smaller. Dance halls faded away.
And the stages in the bars and taverns were the music laboratories as Bakersfield's reaction to the softening Nashville sound was to kick up the volume, twang up the Telecasters and sing about things that didn't require orchestral strings.
