Accompanying himself on guitar, Elton Hayes was quite at ease singing English folk songs and ballads, modern ditties or the Edward Lear ‘Nonsense’ songs. His many live performances relied heavily on songs from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for he had a great love of old English music. Over the years, he collected together hundreds of songs and ballads to which he put his own guitar arrangements. From these he would chose the appropriate ones to use in a performance, all adapted to his individual style. Elton also composed many of his own songs. They called him the minstrelsy through the ages. His recording career was relatively short. Between the years 1950 and 1957 Elton recorded 42 songs and contributed to one album, the soundtrack of Disney’s Robin Hood. Many fine songs from his repertoire were sadly never put on record.