Sam Payne: Bio
Bio (public speaker)
Sam Payne was born in Provo, Utah and raised in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains. The son of folk singer and actor Marvin Payne, he grew up to serve a mission to Argentina, after which he returned to marry Kristie Lott, his high school sweetheart. He studied jazz and theater in college, which took him to stages from West Coast Universities to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Brother Payne served as a full-time Seminary teacher from 1995 to 2006, teaching most recently at Tuacahn (pronounced “TOO-uh-con”) High School for the Performing Arts. He holds a degree in English from Weber State University, and a Masters of Education degree from Southern Utah University. Brother Payne writes books for elementary school students, and has recorded a growing catalog of original music, which he performs before audiences large and small. Brother Payne hosts “the Sounds of Sunday,” a popular weekly inspirational radio program, and clients of his radio writing include Glenn Beck, the popular syndicated radio and television host. He and Kristie, together with their four boys, live in Lindon, Utah.
a little about me...
I was twelve when my Dad handed me a copy of William Goldman's "The Princess Bride," in which the old immigrant Dad describes the story he's about to read his pneumonia-ridden son: "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison..." he says. "True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad Men. Good Men. Beautifulest Ladies..." the old man continues. "Pain. Death. Brave Men. Coward Men. Strongest Men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles." He wasn't, but Goldman might as well have been describing the tunes I'd spin out, or try to, as a grown-up. If I've done it right, the answers to the question "What happens next?" are all here--or at least the questions, well-asked. Maybe the blind man makes it to the peak. Maybe the sheriff gets the gold. Maybe the ship makes the harbor. Maybe the boys come home from the war. And maybe not. Fables, these are. Anyway, most folks seem to think that a CD's (or a concert's) worth of time spent with me is a good ride. I hope you think so too, or at the very least can say, like little Billy Goldman, "Sounds okay, I'll do my best to stay awake..."
Bio (music)
"Payne delivers his riveting folktales with passion, emotionally stirring hooks, and an almost supernatural ability to tell a story."
-Kevin Jones, "The Independent" magazine
As a songwriter and performer, Sam Payne (the son of troubadour and actor Marvin Payne) has played stages from the jazz clubs of Tokyo to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Payne has written and performed with a number of projects, including "SAVOY," the acclaimed Jazz quartet, but it is perhaps with his original music that audiences most identify. Payne's contemporary folk tunes and the stories that accompany them have established Payne and his band (The Sam Payne Project) as a perennial favorite of audiences around the west. Visit him online at www.sampayne.com.
The press has said of Sam Payne's music: "Payne is one of those few musicians who can successfully combine both songwriting and stage performing. He can write poignant and meaningful lyrics, combine them with a melodic hook, and perform them in a voice that makes you want to close your eyes and drift away."
Bio (long)
Just as the 1960s became the 1970s, a young folk singer/songwriter named Marvin Payne fled the suburbs of Los Angeles and found a home at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains in Northern Utah. There he and his wife, Niki (a violinist from the San Francisco Bay Area), grew a family and developed a faithful musical following, far from the dollar-fed Southern California music magnates. Marvin Payne's music rode the wave generated by poet-musicians like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, right into the living rooms of college students up and down the Intermountain West.
A quarter century later, Payne's children (mostly grown now) have exponentially carried their parent's musical drive into their own communities, all with the same homespun sensibilities that rescued their folks from the West Coast. Daughter Eliza remains the sweetheart of Northern Utah musical theater stages, and is a perennial favorite as both a classical vocalist and a jazz singer. Sons David and Joseph haunt Salt Lake City and its environs as prolific and energetic rock songwriters. Son Josh, a sometime New Yorker, pushes the envelope of jazz, wringing sounds from his old Gibson that baffle and delight audiences from one end of the country to the other.
It may at first seem strange then that when Marvin and Niki Payne's oldest son, Sam, came to Southern Utah in 1995, it wasn't as a musician at all. Sam Payne came to St. George to teach religion. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints hired him as a seminary teacher. Sam pulled up stakes as an accomplished actor and children's performer to head South, and for a year or so kept a low musical profile with his wife, Kristie, and his son, Skyler.
Then, in April of 1997, Sam Payne was approached by an accomplished west coast drummer named Korky Ollerton. Ollerton had himself fled from the Southern California punk scene some years earlier (after stints with numerous bands, including the act that became "Social Distortion") for the peace of Utah's Dixie. He had heard Payne perform an original tune for a church youth group, and suggested that they play together. Almost immediately to the picture as well sprang Payne's oldest friend, keyboardist David Dalley, who had just moved to town as a schoolteacher and counselor.
The "powerfolk" of the Sam Payne Trio seemed to appeal to a wide cross-section of ages and tastes, and the band enjoyed a stable following on the festival and concert-series circuit, playing for enthusiastic audiences that included (perhaps not surprisingly) healthy numbers of old Marvin Payne fans.
It was early in 1999 when Payne and Ollerton came together on another project. This time, the serendipitous ensemble included saxophonist Scott Dalton, his wife Mami on keys, and all-around musician Carlyle Potter on Bass. "The Utah Jazz Quintet" as the group came to be known, surprised locals (especially, perhaps, fans of the Sam Payne Trio and other Ollerton projects) with polished and innovative interpretations of jazz standards. The "Jazz" quickly became a staple of the Southern Utah music scene.
Lately though, it has been Payne's quiet return to the performance of his original music (and to Northern Utah) that has turned the heads of critics and audiences around the West. Alone or backed by his band (The Sam Payne Project), Payne's arresting stage presence, his craft as a poet, and his soaring tenor voice have established him as an enduring and engaging performer; the songwriter's songwriter.
The press has said of Sam Payne's music: "Payne is one of those few musicians who can successfully combine both songwriting and stage performing. He can write poignant and meaningful lyrics, combine them with a melodic hook, and perform them in a voice that makes you want to close your eyes and drift away."
Bio (Sam Payne Project)
The Sam Payne Project was born on September 12, 2001. The Trade Center towers had fallen the day before, and Payne was in the studio to record a tune for a local compilation album. Eerie in its timeliness, the tune was “Ohio Son,” a song written in 1998 about soldiers anticipating what turned out to be U.S. bombing strikes over Iraq. Behind the controls was producer and guitarist Steve Lemmon, with whom Payne was then only cursorily acquainted. Over the course of mixing the tune, bluegrass player Ryan Tilby came to fill the second engineer’s seat. The track turned out fine, but three original albums and a hundred performances later, the real fruits of those few days are still ripening. The project has since grown to include drummer Steve Flaig. The members of the project bring to the table a history that includes performances on stages from the Akasaka Prince ballroom in Tokyo to Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center.