Hayes’ predecessors as well-known African-American concert artists, including Sissieretta Jones and Marie Selika, were not recorded.

William Hayes claimed to have some Cherokee ancestry, while his maternal great-grandfather, Aba Ougi (renamed as Charles Mann) was a Chieftain from the Ivory Coast.

A quote of him talking about beginning his career with a pianist: I happened upon a new method for making iron sash-weights," he said, "and that got me a little raise in pay and a little free time.

Hayes's mother thought he was wasting money because she believed that African Americans could not make a living from singing.

[citation needed] He furthered his studies in Boston with Arthur Hubbard, who agreed to give him lessons only if Hayes came to his house instead of his studio.

[citation needed] In January 1915 Hayes premiered in Manhattan, New York City in concerts presented by orchestra leader Walter F.

He began lessons with Sir George Henschel, who was the first conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and gave his first recital in London's Aeolian Hall in May 1920 with pianist Lawrence Brown as his accompanist.

By at least June 1921 he was being invited to sing at private house parties; the poet Siegfried Sassoon heard him while staying with the wealthy music-lover Frank Schuster at Bray-on-Thames.

The next day, he received a summons from King George V and Queen Mary to give a command performance at Buckingham Palace.

He made his official debut on November 16, 1923, in Boston's Symphony Hall singing Berlioz, Mozart, and spirituals, conducted by Pierre Monteux, which received critical acclaim.

In 1925, Hayes had an affair with a married Czech aristocrat, Bertha Henriette Katharina Nadine, Gräfin von Colloredo-Mansfeld (June 21, 1890 in Týnec – January 29, 1982 in Auch), which resulted in a pregnancy.

[13] Their daughter, Maya Kolowrat, would marry Russian émigré farm-worker, later painter, Yuri Mikhailovich Bogdanoff (January 28, 1928 in Leningrad – 2012).

Maya later gave birth in Saint-Lary, Gers, to twins Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff in 1949, who later attributed their early interest in the sciences to their unhampered childhood access to their maternal grandmother's castle library.

[3] After the 1930s, Hayes stopped touring in Europe because the change in politics and the rise of the Nazi Party made it unfavourable to African Americans.

In 1943 he sang several times in Britain to entertain troops, and appeared at the Royal Albert Hall on 29 September as the soloist before a 200-member choir of all Black soldiers, and all from USAAF Engineer Aviation Battalions.

despite this protest, Hayes wrote, "I refused to believe ... that they would hold me, a private Negro citizen of the United States, responsible for the presence of French-speaking Africans".

[16] Hayes's wife and daughter mistakenly sat in seats reserved for white customers in a shoe store in Rome, Georgia in 1942.