Quality Americana

The lonesome fiddle at the start of “Coyote Howlin’ Blues” is perfect for this weary traveling single by Matthew Payne.

Growing Up in the Hill Country

Payne grew up in Dripping Springs, a once-small town on the outskirts of Austin that’s rapidly being swallowed up by the expanding metroplex. It’s kept its character and hosts an annual songwriters festival that supports the artist community.

Payne started playing after his brother returned home from college with an acoustic guitar. He first found inspiration from Bob Dylan and later Woody Guthrie. It’s the songwriters of Austin that have pushed him to release his first single “Coyote Howlin’ Blues.”

“This past twenty years I’ve just heard the pinnacle of songwriters coming through this town,” Payne said. “It’s like I’m just sitting right by this vast ocean and all this treasure is washing up on shore.”

Education

Payne came to Austin for college, and stayed in the capital to teach high school English for the past two decades. 

“It was the best time ever,” Payne said about his time in education and his recent choice to step away from teaching. “I gave everything I could to it. It was amazing, but it’s just kind of another phase of life.”

Payne recorded “Coyote Howlin’ Blues,” along with three other tracks, for his first EP with support from fellow musicians The Magnolia Kids.

“It’s a little late in the game perhaps,” Payne laughed about his first single release, but the time spent finding his sound throughout his educational career really shows. “It’s been a lot of fun for me to connect with folks.”

Musing in West Texas

The single is based on an experience Payne had “driving in my truck and playing guitar and harmonica at the same time, and driving past midnight through Bandera, and just kind of being silly, and younger, and a little restless.”

The single focus on the feeling one gets in the vast landscapes of West Texas.

“It’s sort of based on that energy and that drive past midnight out west you know when there’s kind of nothing,” Payne said. “That feeling stayed with me a long time.”

It also hints at our connection to nature and the freedom the open road can bring.

“The coyote howl has always been significant for me,” Payne said. “It feels like the coyotes are like the first people that taught me to sing. They’re like the first songwriters that I knew. When I was little I would just listen to coyotes at night growing up in the country, they were always singing and it fascinated me.”

Payne also takes influences from the blues and country legends of the past.

“We all have that same howl in us,” Payne said. “It’s the same howl as the blues. It’s all connected.”

He seeks to bring in elements of the Southwestern culture to his music and shine a light on the artists that created our unique melting pot.

“It’s important for me to make sure my music is rooted in that whole longer journey and not just wrapped up in my own experience,” Payne said. “I want to connect through time back, and I want it to have that Jimmie Rodgers feeling in it, and I want it to have the Carter Family, and Henry Thomas and Lightnin’ and the rhythm of all that in there, and then combine that with the Townes Van Zandt’s and my own stuff.

I want to try and put it all together and draw a longer line of connection back. The music mirrors the culture, it’s part of a larger story.”

Support the Artist

In addition to his first EP, Payne can be found on Substack.

More information about Matthew Payne can be found here.

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