Joshua Hayes Carll, known as Hayes Carll, is a singer-songwriter from The Woodlands, Texas (a Houston suburb). He is currently signed to Lost Highway Records.
At age 15, Carll got his first guitar. He learned to write songs influenced by Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, Jack Kerouac and Dead Poets Society. After graduating from high school, he attended Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, from which he graduated in 1998 with a degree in history. He subsequently moved to Crystal Beach, Texas, where he began playing his own songs at local bars. He then moved to Austin, where despite the thriving music scene, he found little success.
Carll left Austin and returned home, playing regularly at McGonigel's Mucky Duck and other locations in Houston and Galveston. After developing a following, Carll signed a one-album contract with Compadre Records, which released his debut Flowers and Liquor in 2002. Immediately embraced by critics, the album garnered comparisons to Townes Van Zandt. The Houston Press named him the best folk act and best new artist of 2002. Carll's songs combined ragged tunes with autobiographical lyrics, including themes about "lying around the house" playing guitar, loneliness and drowning his sorrows in alcohol.
After turning down a multi-album deal from Sugar Hill Records, his second album, Little Rock, was released under his own label, Highway 87 Records. It was produced by notable country music figure R.S. Field. It became the first self-released album to reach number one on the Americana music charts. In May 2006, Carll announced that he had signed with Lost Highway records.
Hayes has written songs with Ray Wylie Hubbard and Guy Clark. Additionally, Carll has had success on the national Americana radio charts, receiving an Americana Award for Little Rock. He is considered a main figure in the resurgence of Texas songwriters, writing in the Dylan-influenced tradition of Clark and Townes Van Zandt.
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