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PRINCESS
HOUSE RECORDS In February 2011, Ruby completed a 3-month singing engagement in a 5-Star hotel in Japan. Ruby and her Blues Band performed in the Presidential Inaugural Unity Ball 2009 at the historic Willard Hotel in downtown Washington, DC She successfully completed a 6-month engagement in Pattaya Beach, Thailand. She performed blues, jazz, and R&B for diverse audiences from all around the world in a 5-Star resort from December 2007 to May 2008. The United States Armed Forces Entertainment selected The Ruby Hayes Jazz & Blues Band out of 100's of bands around the country to entertain and uplift the spirits of the troops along the Caribbean Circuit, Puerto Rico and Honduras, during February and March 2006. Ruby sings Chicago/New Orleans style blues of some of the world's most popular artists such as B.B. King, KoKo Taylor, Bobby Blue Bland, Linda Hopkins and Ruth Brown. Many songs are upbeat and danceable mixed with slow blues. She also performs jazz standards from the 1940's to 1950's by jazz artists such as Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong. Some R&B songs by Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder can also be included in the show. A veteran performer, Ruby is headlining shows all around the Washington, DC metropolitan area and the West Coast. She was a Headliner in the San Diego 2004 Adams Avenue Street Fair Festival, the largest free festival in Southern California. She has opened shows for international artists such as, James Cotton (former harp player for Muddy Waters) Vernon Garrett, Ray, Goodman, & Brown, the late Little Milton, The Four Tops and Cab Calloway III. The Washington Area Music Association (WAMA) nominated her "Best Blues Vocalist" 2002. WAMA also nominated her CD, "Ruby's Blues" as "Best Blues Recording 2003." Her CD "Ruby's Blues" won The Recording Academy's CD Contest. She was a 2002 grant recipient of the DC Commission of Arts and Humanities and a 2003 grant recipient of Jim B.E.A.M. Music. In year 2003, WETA TV, Channel 26 featured her as a Washington DC-based blues artist in the advertisements for "The Blues" produced by Martin Scorsese. Other 2003 television appearances include Montgomery Community Television and Prince Georges Community Television. In 2005, she performed in the Washington, DC Blues Festival, "Divas Stir up the Blues" held at the Carter Baron Amphitheater. Ruby started singing at age 14 leading a gospel choir in her hometown of Plumerville, Arkansas. She toured numerous towns around Arkansas before she moved to Washington, DC in the early 1970's. In Washington, DC she made her professional singing debut at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel as part of the Al Martinez jazz combo. Later she honed her skills in a rhythm and blues band called the Exclusives and performed in military officers clubs and major hotel ballrooms around the Washington, DC metropolitan area. In 1975 Ruby started her own jazz and blues band and she performed up and down the East Coast from New York to Florida and made television appearances on WJLA, Channel 7, and WDCA, Channel 20 in Washington, DC. Ruby is known for her upbeat, interactive performance style which includes occasional sing-a-longs. When not performing in the top clubs & festivals, she performs her own original one-woman musical, Ruby Hayes Sings Bessie's Blues in regional theaters and was attended by Senator Mikulski at the Patterson Theater in Baltimore, MD. Although, she is seen as cool, calm and reserved, when she takes the stage, she's hotter than the month of July. For more information, visit www.rubyhayes.com |