With his mellow, velvet baritone, Haymes was one of the most popular crooners of the forties. Raised by his Irish mother, a singing teacher, in France, Britain, Switzerland and America, Haymes became a radio announcer in 1936. He quickly graduated to featured singer with the bands of Freddie Martin and Orin Tucker and while trying to sell some of his songs to Harry James, was hired by him as a replacement for Frank Sinatra. A singer in the style of Bing Crosby, rather than Sinatra, Haymes’s early records with Harry James, revealed an archness in his phrasing that he would never lose.

   These include ‘How High the Moon’, ‘Fools Rush In’ and their biggest hit together ‘I’ll Get By’. In 1941, he left Harry James and joined Benny Goodman before replacing Sinatra again in Tommy Dorsey’s band. Then, like so many band singers, Haymes went solo in 1943, also signing a film contract with Fox. He had immediate success with his romantic version of , ‘You’ll Never Know’, but was less successful as a screen star. His films included ‘Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ in which he introduced ‘The More I See You’, ‘State Fair’, ‘Do You Love Me’, and ‘The Shocking Miss Pilgrim’ in which he introduced ‘For You, For Me, For Evermore’.
   In 1948, Haymes returned to the cabaret circuit and had a million-seller with a revival, ‘Little White Lies’. In the fifties, however, he faced setbacks in both his personal life and his career. He left America in 1953 and was refused re-admission because he had registered as a resident alien to avoid the draft during the Second World.
   Comeback albums on Capitol records ‘Rain or Shine’ and ‘Moondreams' failed and despite sorting out his immigration problem settled in Ireland in the mid-sixties, he toured America with little  success throughout the seventies.