By Candice Ludlow
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-900251.mp3
Memphis, TN –
"Sunshine" Sonny Payne was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on Wednesday alongside blues greats WC Handy, Lonnie Brooks, Bonnie Raitt and many others. Candice Ludlow drove down Highway 61 and over the Mississippi to Helena-West Helena, Arkansas to visit the man behind the mic.
"I didn't think it would happen. But it did. After let's see this is going on my 60th year and I thought back when I was doing 50, maybe. But after 50 I gave up on it. I'm thankful to a lot of people. I've been blessed," Payne said.
It was 1941 when Payne, who was 16, got his start in radio. Just days before KFFA went on air.
"I asked the manager, Sam Anderson, I said, 'I want a job.'" He said when you get out of school in the afternoon, come show me your homework and we'll talk," Payne explained.
Payne showed up and expected to do radio. Oh, was he surprised. He swept floors, ran errands.
"We used to have to clean old 78 records every night with a dust cloth and fluid and change the needles every other day. You didn't have the needles like you got today. You could get 20 of these for 30 cents. Had to plug em in, clean all those records every night. If you didn't, scratchy everyday. That's how I got started."
A year later, Payne got his chance to deejay. Within a short time, he and other deejays started King Biscuit Time.
"When we first went on air, that was the biggest thing that ever hit Helena, Arkansas. Really. White women would call from the beauty shop. Ask Sonny Boy to play this, but don't tell them who this is, my husband would kill me. A white woman asking for a certain song to be played because they liked to hear Sonny Boy and Robert Jr. and all the other musicians that were playing with him," Payne said.
Payne's love for the blues started before he landed the gig.
"I lived in a neighborhood, in a Afro American neighborhood, and we used to go to an old church about a block from the house on Sunday nights especially in the summer. I say we, I'm talking about a little friend I used to go to school with, he and I used to go there under these big windows that were open, and I heard some of the most beautiful music I had heard in my life. I heard blues," Payne reflected.
King Biscuit Time Radio Show airs Monday through Friday at 12:15 PM on KFFA
The Blues Foundation Blues Hall of Fame 2010 Inductees:
Performers:
Lonnie Brooks
Charlie Musselwhite
Bonnie Raitt
W.C. Handy
Gus Cannon and Cannon's Jug Stompers
Amos Milburn
Non-Performers:
Sunshine Sonny Payne
Peter Guralnick
Classic of Blues Literature
The Bluesmen by Sam Charters
Classic of Blues Recording
Single/Album Track
"Key to the Highway" Big Bill Broonzy (Okeh, 1941)
"All Your Love (I Miss Loving)" Otis Rush (Cobra, 1958)
"Fever" Little Willie John (King, 1956)
"Match Box Blues" -- Blind Lemon Jefferson (OKeh and Paramount, 1927)
"Spoonful" -- Howlin' Wolf (Chess, 1960)
Album
Strong Persuader by Robert Cray (Mercury LP/CD, 1986)
Hung Down Head by Lowell Fulson (Chess LP, 1970; CD, 1996)
I Hear Some Blues Downstairs by Fenton Robinson (Alligator LP, 1977; CD, 1991)