Roland Hayes is probably most widely known for the incident when he scheuled a lieder performance in Berlin and a hostile audience showed up. Here's his description of what happened.
Well, I came out on stage, and there was a burst of hissing that lasted about ten minutes. I just stood there, and then I decided to change my program. As soon as it was quiet, I began with Schubert's "Du bist die Ruh." I could see a change come over the hostile faces, and by the end of the song I knew I had won.
Which is certainly worth knowing about, though, like all such incidents, it can distract from the fact that he was a great singer and a great musician.
Facing as much hostility in the United States, he often had to become his own promoter and even his own record producer. His singing and arrangements of traditional spirituals were a profound expression of both the folk tradition and classical singing. His accompaniments are always just complex enough, always adding to the words, not distracting from them, always just right. His advice about singing and his list of steps in learning a song are some of the most useful I've ever read and probably accounts for why he became a great singer.
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