Asie Payton

Worried (Fat Possum)
by Jon Sarre

The grim reaper caught up with Asie Payton before Matthew Johnson could. The Holly Ridge, MS bluesman died of a heart attack in May of ’97. The tracks that make up his posthumous debut record, Worried, were originally recorded a few years back as demos for Johnson’s Fat Possum label and are most likely all the world’s ever gonna hear of Payton. What made it to tape are all traditional blues standards interpreted by a guy who sounds like a more soulful Howlin’ Wolf who played a cheapo trebly electric Fender rip-off of some sort. He’s usually accompanied on shambling drums by very occasional T Model Ford sideman Sam Carr.

Enamored as they’ve been of late by the considerable success of R.L. Burnside’s Come On In “remix” album, Johnson and producer Bruce Watson also include a couple vaguely danceable drum’n’bass’n’keys Jim Waters/Scott Benzel deals which don’t bug me as much as Waters’ addition to T Model Ford’s latest offering. I still wish they’d cut that shit out, but who am I to question the market? Oddly enough, the Burnside disc is a favorite of a number of strippers I know (and maybe that’s why, loathe as I am to admit it, Come On In‘s been growin’ on me). It’s too late to ask Asie what he thinks of all this, but then again, if he knew people’d be shaking their asses to his stuff, he’d probably be happy.
(PO Box 1923 Oxford, MS 38655)