Walker Hayes

Walker Hayes hails from Mobile, AL. Walker completed a degree in general music with an emphasis on piano in just two years at Birmingham-Southern College and emerged from BSC with a hard earned music degree. Walker then moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina and attended the University of North Carolina. In the summer of 2004 Walker took his drive and tenacity of becoming a Country Music Artist and a hit songwriter and headed to Nashville. After settling in, Walker was introduced to Manager/Publisher Christy DiNapoli. DiNapoli heard Walker sing two songs and said “I’ve been waiting for someone like you to walk into my office for the last 5-years!” Walker then signed with DiNapoli and the legendary Buddy Killen at KMG Entertainment and within six months signed his first development deal with Mercury Records. After a short stint with Mercury, Walker continued writing with DiNapoli and his new company, The Music Group. During that period, Autumn House Senior Vice President of A&R for Capitol Records heard Walker on a demo tape pitched to her for Keith Urban and fell in love with his voice and his songwriting. After she met Walker and heard him sing she immediately brought him to Capitol President Mike Dungan and Walker was offered a Recording Contract that evening. When Walker asked Autumn the question “I thought you had too many males on your roster” Autumn House immediately responded “We do have a lot of male acts on our roster but not like you!” Because of Walker’s unique style and creativity, he and Capitol wanted to look outside of the Nashville Production machine and take a chance with a producer from the outside to bring Walker’s material to life. One of those ideas was LA Pop Producer Marshall Altman (Marc Broussard, Matt Nathanson). Altman fell in love with what he heard and flew to Nashville for a meeting. The combination was magic, and the two began pre production on what was to become the debut album. The album was completed and delivered in early January 2010 and the label is currently gearing up for a springtime debut release. Walker has current joined the list as one of Country Music’s biggest Tours of 2010 along side of some of Country Music’s biggest Artist. The 2010 Country Throwdown Tour begins on May 14th and runs through twenty four cities across the US.