Deseret News | Singer is a storyteller with guitar in hand

Singer is a storyteller with guitar in hand

Payne's music honors the connections in his own life

By Carma Wadley
Deseret News

Published: Friday, Aug. 1, 2008 12:07 a.m. MDT

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Let's talk about storytelling: Sam Payne is a master at it. With a guitar in hand, Payne tells stories of life, of people, of history and heritage.

It's not exactly how he started out. "I was going to be a big pop act; that was my first band. Then I added jazz." But what he has come to realize, he says, is "that what I am is an American folk singer. I connect to that part of the community." And as a folk singer, "I feel a responsibility to the community I belong to, to provide a picture frame for our cultural family. I have found that I can be a voice for the Western pioneer experience."

Let's talk about connections: Not only has Payne discovered "how family, faith and ancestors connect us to each other" and reinforces those connections through his music, he is also honoring the connections in his own life. "My dad, Marvin, was a folk singer who made a living walking door to door with a guitar on his back with albums to sell. He was the stereotypical 'artist as the servant of the kingdom.' Being a folk musician cost my dad a lot. But he had deep spiritual ideas that he was doing what he came here to do. To say there were times when we lived in abject poverty is too strong — but not too strong."

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Let's talk about passion: Because Payne grew up watching how hard his dad worked to make a living, and because his dad knew how hard it would be, "he didn't encourage us to follow musical pursuits. I actually trained as a schoolteacher, and worked at that for 11 years."

It wasn't until "music kept knocking on the door and couldn't be ignored that I turned to it." Payne still writes books for elementary-school kids, has done some science and social studies texts as well as some historical fiction. But he's also let music into his life because he had to; the passion was there.

Storytelling, connections and passion all come together in Payne's latest CD, "Father to Son."

It features both the stories and the songs that have been popular in his live shows, he says. "It's the album that people have been coming up after the shows and asking for." The CD contains 24 tracks, "and when people first see it they think, 'Wow, that's a lot of music.' But 11 tracks are stories; 13 tracks are songs."

He's found that "my live show depends on the stories behind the songs," so he hopes the CD conveys the spirit and feel of the live show. "It was a great pleasure to make," he says.

As he has said, Payne came rather late to music. "I was living in St. George, when my youngest brother came through. He's an innovative jazz guitarist, and he handed me a guitar. 'Everyone else in the family knows how to play,' he said. 'We're tired of you not playing.' I had done some singing with groups before that, but I decided I'd better learn the guitar."