William Shakespeare Hays (July 19, 1837 – July 23, 1907) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and

lyricist A lyricist is a songwriter who writes lyrics (the spoken words), as opposed to a composer, who writes the song's music which may include but not limited to the melody, harmony, arrangement and accompaniment. Royalties A lyricist's incom ...

. He wrote some 350 songs over his career and sold as many as 20 million copies of his works. These pieces varied in tone from low comedy to sentimental and pious; his material was sometimes confused with that of

Stephen Foster Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826January 13, 1864), known also as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour and minstrel music during the Romantic period. He wrote more than 200 songs, inc ...

as a result. In his later years, Hays put forth one of the more plausible claims to authorship of the song "

Dixie Dixie, also known as Dixieland or Dixie's Land, is a nickname for all or part of the Southern United States. While there is no official definition of this region (and the included areas shift over the years), or the extent of the area it cover ...

". In the end, however, no evidence could be produced to back up his pretensions.

Biography

Hays was born as William Hays in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, which was then a small but rapidly growing city where he would spend most of his life. He published his first poetry in 1856 and 1857 through the paper of his

Georgetown, Kentucky Georgetown is a home rule-class city in Scott County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 37,086 at the 2020 census. It is the 6th-largest city by population in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is the seat of its county. It was original ...

, school. Hays eventually received the nickname "Shakespeare" for his writings, an appellation he made a formal part of his name. Hays finished school and returned to Louisville in 1857. He found employment at D. P. Fauld's music store, where he continued to write music and poetry. He published many of his pieces under pen names, including Syah ("Hays" spelled backward). He also produced three small collections of poetry. Over his career, Hays is credited with over 350 songs, and he may have sold as many as 20 million copies of his works, making him more prolific than most of his 19th century peers.Abel 47. His songs show a great variety, ranging from austere

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hy ...

s to base

minstrel A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer ...

tunes. In fact, the style of some of his songs was so like that of

that the two men's material was sometimes confused. Hays was married to Rosa Belle McCullough (1847-1935), and the couple had two children, Mattie and Samuel. Hays died in Louisville on July 23, 1907, less than a week after his 70th birthday. He is buried in

Cave Hill Cemetery Cave Hill Cemetery is a Victorian era National Cemetery and arboretum located at Louisville, Kentucky. Its main entrance is on Baxter Avenue and there is a secondary one on Grinstead Drive. It is the largest cemetery by area and number of buri ...

"Dixie" claims

In his later years, Hays claimed to have written the lyrics to "

", a song that had enjoyed unprecedented popularity since before the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

and that was by then usually attributed to minstrel show songwriter Dan Emmett. Specifically, Hays said that he had written the song at Faulds in 1858, one year before Emmett and Bryant's Minstrels first performed it. In May 1907, Hays presented his claims to a Southern historical society in Louisville known as the Filson Club. The organization formed a subcommittee and investigated. On June 4, the subcommittee chair announced that he had received word from a man in Texas who claimed to have a copy of Hays's sheet music, published through D. P. Faulds. Nevertheless, the document never materialized. Meanwhile, the 70-year-old Hays grew ill, and his wife took over management of his case. She wrote to Oliver Ditson & Co., a Boston-based publisher, for information on "Away Down South in Dixie" by Will S. Hays. They responded that they did not have such a song in their catalog. William Shakespeare Hays died in 1907 with no resolution to his claim. However, Hays's claim was not forgotten. In 1908, Thomas J. Firth, a music teacher in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, who had led the 13th Tennessee Volunteers band, contacted D. P. Faulds. The publisher claimed to have printed 50,000 copies of the song a year earlier than Firth, Pond & Co. did so for Emmett. Faulds said that his version was

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

ed and attributed to Hays as "Way Down South in Dixie". Furthermore, Faulds wrote that only the

lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a " libretto" and their writer, ...

had been copyrighted, since the music came from an earlier English song that began "If I were a soldier wouldn't I go . . .", and which had been subsequently parodied in a

children's song A children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that children invent and share among themselves or a modern creation intended for entertainment, use in the home or education. Although children's songs have been recorded and studied ...

. Unfortunately for Firth, all copies had been lost in a store fire.Abel 48. Evidence suggests that Faulds's did publish a song called "Away Down South in Dixie" with words attributed to "Jerry Blossom" and music by "Dixie Jr.", but it was in 1860—after Firth, Pond & Co.'s version. In 1917, Thomas J. Firth wrote to Mrs. Hays for a copy of Hays's version of the song, but she had none to show him. In 1916, Edward Le Roy Rice, journalist for ''

The New York Clipper The ''New York Clipper'', also known as ''The Clipper'', was a weekly entertainment newspaper published in New York City from 1853 to 1924. It covered many topics, including circuses, dance, music, the outdoors, sports, and theatre. It had a ...

'', wrote to Mrs. Hays and explained that he was researching a book on "Dixie" and wished to settle the authorship argument once and for all. Still, Mrs. Hays was unable to provide him with any evidence to support her husband in the dispute. In 1937, Hays's daughter made one final attempt to support her father as the author of "Dixie". She wrote to ''

The Etude ''The Etude'' was an American print magazine dedicated to music founded by Theodore Presser (1848–1925) at Lynchburg, Virginia, and first published in October 1883. Presser, who had also founded the Music Teachers National Association, moved ...

'' that her father had written "Dixie" for the Buckner Guards "when they were called south during the Civil War". The editor, James Coke, asked for evidence, but she could provide none. To this day: there remains, as yet, no known evidence to support Hays' claim that he did indeed write "Dixie".

Notes

References

* Abel, E. Lawrence (2000). ''Singing the New Nation: How Music Shaped the Confederacy, 1861-1865''. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books.

External links

* * Works by Hays o
IMSLP
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hays, William Shakespeare 1837 births 1907 deaths 19th-century American poets American male poets American lyricists Writers from Louisville, Kentucky Poets from Kentucky Blackface minstrel songwriters Burials at Cave Hill Cemetery 19th-century American male writers