Richie Hayward was a drummer

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

 best known as a founding member and drummer in the band Little Feat

Little Feat

Little Feat is an American rock band formed by singer-songwriter, lead vocalist and guitarist Lowell George and keyboardist Bill Payne in 1969 in Los Angeles....

. He performed with several bands and worked as a session player. Hayward also joined with friends in some small acting roles on television, which included an episode of F Troop

F Troop

F Troop is a satirical American television sitcom that originally aired for two seasons on ABC-TV. It debuted in the United States on September 14, 1965 and concluded its run on April 6, 1967 with a total of 65 episodes. The first season of 34 episodes was filmed in black-and-white, but the show...

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Early career

Hayward first appeared to the public as a member of a band based in Southern California. Before he joined Little Feat he was a member of the groups The Fraternity of Man, and then, The Factory, which was where he met the frontman of the band, Lowell George

Lowell George

Lowell Thomas George was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, who was the main guitarist and songwriter for the rock band Little Feat.- Early years :...

. The Factory portrayed the anachronistic Beatlesque band, the Bedbugs, on the February 9, 1967 episode of the sitcom, F Troop

F Troop

F Troop is a satirical American television sitcom that originally aired for two seasons on ABC-TV. It debuted in the United States on September 14, 1965 and concluded its run on April 6, 1967 with a total of 65 episodes. The first season of 34 episodes was filmed in black-and-white, but the show...

.

In addition to his work with Little Feat, Hayward recorded and performed with many other artists including: Joan Armatrading

Joan Armatrading

Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, MBE is a British singer, songwriter and guitarist. Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist...

, Delaney Bramlett

Delaney Bramlett

Delaney Bramlett was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and producer. Bramlett's five decade career reached peaks in creativity, performance, and notoriety in partnership with his then wife Bonnie Bramlett, in a revolving troupe of professional musicians and Rock superstars dubbed Delaney...

, Kim Carnes

Kim Carnes

Kim Carnes is an American singer-songwriter. She is a two-time Grammy Award winner noted for her distinctive raspy vocal style. Some people have called her "The Female Rod Stewart" due to her raspy voice....

, Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

, Ry Cooder

Ry Cooder

Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...

, James Cotton

James Cotton

James Cotton is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who has performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time as well as with his own band.-Career:...

, The Doobie Brothers

The Doobie Brothers

The Doobie Brothers are an American rock band. The group has sold over 40 million units worldwide throughout their career. The Doobie Brothers were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004.-Original incarnation:...

, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Peter Frampton

Peter Frampton

Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English musician, singer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold over 6 million copies...

, Buddy Guy

Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...

, Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...

, Al Kooper

Al Kooper

Al Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...

, Jonny Lang

Jonny Lang

Jonny Lang is a Grammy award-winning American blues, gospel, and rock singer, songwriter and recording artist. Lang's music is notable for both his unusual voice, which has been compared to that of a forty-year-old blues veteran, and for his guitar solos...

, Eric Lynn, Nils Lofgren

Nils Lofgren

Nils Hilmer Lofgren is an American rock music recording artist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist...

, Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal (musician)

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...

, Coco Montoya, Robert Palmer, Van Dyke Parks

Van Dyke Parks

Van Dyke Parks is an American composer, arranger, producer, musician, singer, author and actor. Parks is perhaps best known for his contributions as a lyricist on the Beach Boys album Smile....

, Robert Plant

Robert Plant

Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...

, Paul Rodgers, Bob Seger

Bob Seger

Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...

, Carly Simon

Carly Simon

Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...

, Stephen Stills

Stephen Stills

Stephen Arthur Stills is an American guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash . He has performed on a professional level in several other bands as well as maintaining a solo career at the same time...

, Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

, John Cale

John Cale

John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....

, Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon

Warren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for including his sometimes sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics, composing songs that were sometimes humorous and often had political or historical themes.Zevon's work has often been praised by well-known...

, Warren Haynes

Warren Haynes

Warren Haynes is an American rock and blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. Haynes is best known for his work as long time guitarist with The Allman Brothers Band and as founding member of the jam band Gov't Mule. Early in his career he was a guitarist for David Allan Coe and The Dickey...

, Jimmy Herring

Jimmy Herring

Jimmy Herring is an American guitarist who is currently the lead guitarist in the band Widespread Panic. Herring is a founding member of Aquarium Rescue Unit and Jazz is Dead...

 and Helen Watson

Helen Watson (singer-songwriter)

Helen Watson is an English singer-songwriter. Her music encompasses blues, soul, jazz, pop and folk.-Biography:Watson began performing on the folk-club circuit during the late 1960s whilst working as a teacher in Manchester...

.

Death

In August 2009, Hayward announced that he had recently been diagnosed with liver cancer

Liver cancer

Liver tumors or hepatic tumors are tumors or growths on or in the liver . Several distinct types of tumors can develop in the liver because the liver is made up of various cell types. These growths can be benign or malignant...

 and would not be at work indefinitely. A benefit concert was organized, and a website created where fans unable to attend could donate towards his treatment costs. Hayward, who lived in Canada, did not have health insurance. While awaiting a liver transplant, Hayward died from complications of lung disease at a hospital in Victoria, British Columbia on August 12, 2010. Little Feat drum technician Gabe Ford

Gabe Ford

Gabe Ford is an American musician probably best known as the current drummer for Little Feat. He was born into a musical family. His father, Patrick, is also a musician as are his uncles Mark Ford and Robben Ford. He plays drums, guitar and keyboards.-Musical career:Ford spent his early career in...

 has been taking his place on drums since August 2009.

The day after his death Little Feat played a gig at Fairport's Cropredy Convention festival in Cropredy

Cropredy

Cropredy is a village and civil parish on the River Cherwell, north of Banbury in Oxfordshire.-Early history:The village has Anglo-Saxon origins and is recorded in the Domesday Book...

in the U.K and spoke of their sadness onstage finding themselves performing a spectacular set in front of 20,000 festival goers.

External links

• Official Little Feat site (Requires Flash)
• Widget.chipin.com