Bluesobit: Steve Hay

Steve Hay, Scottish blues singer and leader of Steve Hay's Shades Of Blue, has died.

Hay was in the original line-up of The Exploited (back then, going by Hayboy), but after a calendar year as a punk Hay gravitated towards the blues. He landed a tour with Charlie Musselwhite, which he recalled for The Herald last year:

"I thought I was going to be playing the guitar in his band. But it turned out I was the band. It was just the two of us, and he didn't tell me anything. No song title, no keys. All he said was 'when I put my foot down, we start; and when I put my foot down again, we stop'."

Hay balanced a musical life with a bread-and-butter career; he described the day he got made redundant from his last day job, coinciding with a 50th birthday gift of a Stratocaster, as a sign which gave him his "fifteenth wind".

Hay had been due to co-headline the Edinburgh Jazz And Blues Festival. He died on Wednesday 3rd July from a heart attack.