Bill Payne 2/3/48-6/17/16
My brother, Bill E. Payne, passed away last night, so he joins fellow musicians Merle Haggard, Prince, Keith Emerson, and many more that have moved on to a greater place. Bill was a musician since he was a kid. He played the bass drum at Baylor in the Drum & Bugle Corps. He taught guitar at Al Miller Music in the sixties, too. He and some friends had a band in the sixties, The Fabulous Furies, and they actually got to open for the Beach Boys at the Memorial Auditorium. Adulthood and parenthood slowed the musical interests down a bit, but the flame was reignited a few years ago when he was living in Roanoke, Virginia.
He released a couple of albums at that point, and actually sold a few – enough to get a few royalty checks, although they were just large enough to buy a Happy Meal. A couple of times he got larger checks, but he discovered they were paying him royalties for Bill Payne from Little Feat. He didn’t like that, so he changed his name with ASCAP and BMI to Bill E. Payne. He wanted to be paid for his writing efforts, not some one else.
His Naughty & Nice CD was my favorite. It had many of the songs that I had heard Bill do live at venues around Chattanooga and Roanoke. Bill was good on the guitar, but only because he practiced, practiced, practiced. He took his music seriously and was a perfectionist in just about everything he undertook.
He had some problems with his hands from arthritis and an injury, so music went to the back burner once again. His new Passion? Santa. Bill was the best Santa ever. The really cool part was the personality change that came with donning the Santa suit. Bill could be a tad cantankerous sometimes, and he really didn’t like snot-nosed kids yelling and screaming and going all crazy. Put him in the Santa suit and everything changed. He became the real Santa, loving every little kid that came along to pull his beard. He would even buy some little gifts out of his own pocket to make sure they left with something when they hopped off his lap. You just have to understand – this was a man that would make a nun curse, make doctors or nurses quit and go to truck driver school before having to face him again. In the Santa suit, he was the nicest guy ever. EVER.
In reality, he just had a hard shell, but a soft underbelly. He would do anything for a friend or relative. He helped me paint my house. The entire house. In the summer. In July. He dog sit for Chewy the one-eyed deaf wonder dog. He helped me with my boat. He helped me tile our backsplash. He helped me put in the new sink disposal. The list goes on and on and on. He wasn’t one to take charity, so a couple of times I would arrange a Santa gig for him, pay the venue, and they would pay him. He wouldn’t have taken the money from me. Many times, if he was hired as Santa for a charity, he would just give his fee to the charity that hired him.
I guess by now you have figured out my brother was pretty darn special. I miss him already, but he is no longer in pain. I hope he gets to play some music with Merle and maybe Waylon, too.
Bob Payne is the entertainment editor for the Chattanoogan.com and talent/production assistant at Friends Of The Festival. Email Bob Payne at davrik@aol.com or www.facebook.com/davrik2000.
Santa Bill E. Payne