Sam Payne
Sam Payne is a Mormon musician and storyteller who also performs with his band, The Sam Payne Project and with his jazz quartet Savoy. His style has been called "jazz-inflected folk," and people go wild over his original lyrics. He's been called the songwriter's songwriter. He is a premier act in the Intermountain West but has also performed around the nation and internationally.
As a storyteller he regularly performs at the Weber Storytelling Festival and has been featured at other festivals large and small, including the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival and on the Exchange Place stage at the National Storytelling Festival. He serves on the board of the National Storytelling Network. Payne has brought his stories and songs to halls in Canada, Bulgaria, Tokyo, and from coast to coast in the United States, including the Will Rogers Auditorium in Dallas, Texas, and the Kennedy Center in the nation's capitol.
Payne also writes and produces for radio, and his clients have included Glenn Beck, the popular syndicated radio and television host. He hosts “The Apple Seed: Tellers and Stories,” a daily radio show on the art of storytelling for BYU Radio. He also conceived and directed the nation’s most listened-to inspirational Internet radio station, YLDSR.com, and created and syndicated “The Radio Family Journal,” a popular weekly storytelling radio feature for families.
Sam is son of folk singer and actor Marvin Payne. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and servee a mission to Argentina. He and first wife, Kristie Lott, are the parents of four boys.
He holds a bachelor's degree in English from Weber State University, and a master's degree in education from Southern Utah University. He studied jazz and theater in college. He is the department chair of the music department at Pioneer High School for the Performing Arts in Utah. He has taught at Tuacahn (pronounced “TOO-uh-con”) High School for the Performing Arts in St. George, Utah.
Payne has authored educational publications for children, and his work has been adopted as standard curriculum by state boards of education in Florida and Arkansas.
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