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, as well as long-time horn player Denis Zwang. 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.


"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 the locally acclaimed "The Utah Jazz Quintet," but it is perhaps with his original music that audiences most identify. Payne's contemporary folk tunes--spinning out gripping yarns of pirates, hobbits, spacemen, and more, in voicings that range from high folk to big funk--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." Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.