Country Singer Wade Hayes Raises Funds for New Album Amid His Bout with Cancer

Country music singer Wade Hayes is raising funds to release his new album "Go Live Your Life," amidst his struggles with colon cancer.  The Oklahoma native has launched a PledgeMusic campaign to raise funds for the project. The digital downloads of 'Go Live Your Life' will be available by March 1, while the physical CD will be available by March 12. Five percent of the money raised above Hayes' goal will go to the Colon Cancer Alliance. Find more information here.

"My new album, 'Go Live Your Life,' is almost finished, and it's no exaggeration to say that this is the most important album I've ever made," Hayes explains. "It's been five years since my last album, and during that time, I've lived through a lot of fear, a lot of hope, a lot of healing - and a lot of meaning. I wrote nine of the 10 songs on this album during my battle with colon cancer. The writing process was truly therapeutic for me, and I can't wait to share these songs with you."

Hayes was first diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer in 2011. After being declared cancer-free following surgery and chemotherapy, Hayes' cancer returned in 2013, this time in his lymph nodes.

"They opened me up from stem to stern, literally," he recalls. "They had to take a big part of my large intestine, most of my liver, part of my diaphragm out, lymph nodes, and I've had several small surgeries on my liver to get it repaired enough to work correctly. It was a bad deal. It was very serious. I'm probably being too brutally honest, but it's the truth. I look like a baseball from all the scars I've got!"

Hayes was signed to Columbia Records in 1994, he made his debut that year with his gold-certified album Old Enough to Know Better. Its title track, which served as his debut single, reached Number One on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts, and three more singles from it all reached Top Ten as well.

Hayes' second album, 1996's On a Good Night, was also certified gold, although its No. 2-peaking title track was the only Top 40 hit from it. When the Wrong One Loves You Right, his third album, produced two more singles, including the No. 5 "The Day That She Left Tulsa (In a Chevy)", although he left the label by 1999. A year later, he signed to the Monument roster, where he released Highways & Heartaches. This album produced no Top 40 country hits, however.

In 2003, he founded the duo McHayes with Alan Jackson's fiddle player Mark McClurg. The duo charted one single on the country charts and recorded one unreleased album for the Universal South label, "Lessons in Lonely." He joined the backing band for former Alabama lead singer Randy Owen in the late 2000s, and self-released Place to Turn Around in 2009.

In December 2011, Wade was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. Shortly after learning of his illness, he wrote the song "Is It Already Time," a ballad about his battle with the disease. He has been in remission since June 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

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