Early Life
Payne was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of guitarist Jody Payne and Grammy Award-winning country singer Sammi Smith. His father became a longtime picker for Willie Nelson; his mother toured with Waylon Jennings. Payne is named for Jennings, who is his godfather. Due to the divorce of his parents and their heavy touring schedules, when he was about four months old Payne's mother placed him with her brother and sister-in-law, Bob and Yvonne, in Vidor, Texas. Although he spent summers out on the road with his mother, he lived with his uncle and aunt, who were strict Christians, until he was about age 18.
After high school, Payne enrolled in a seminary to become a minister. Payne had also acquired a taste for beer, marijuana, and popular music, which made his downfall complete in the eyes of his aunt and uncle. "I haven't seen them since," he has said. "I was branded a sinner and basically disowned."
Read more about this topic: Waylon Payne
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“There’s something tragic in the fate of almost every person—it’s just that the tragic is often concealed from a person by the banal surface of life.... A woman will complain of indigestion and not even know that what she means is that her whole life has been shattered.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)