By McKinsleigh Smith
What do the Disney Channel, J. Golden Kimball, and Imagine Dragons all have in common? Utah performing arts veteran Marvin Payne. This 73-year-old career musician has had an incredible journey. He’s done everything from folk music to musical theatre and film.
“I’m 73 and never really acquired any ‘marketable skills.’ You know, like a dental hygienist has, or a Drug Kingpin, or whoever,” joked Payne during a 2022 piece for Meridian Magazine. “I’m just a song-and-dance man, but without the dancing.”
Payne’s lack of dancing prowess shouldn’t come as a surprise. In fact, him becoming an accomplished musician is actually a bit of a miracle. Payne wasn’t raised in an artistic home, and his family wasn’t the least bit musically inclined. Despite this, his “unmusical” family saw his raw talent and supported him every step of the way, with his father purchasing instruments for his son to master, including a pawn shop banjo and a 12-string guitar he saw in a music store window.
“My dad said, ‘Hey, if you’re going to pour all this energy into writing and sharing songs, why not write about what’s most important to you?’” recounts Payne. “I became an absolute fanatic, writing about my particular vision of our relationship to our Maker and the purpose of life.”
Since that time, he’s written songs for the likes of the Osmonds, Andy Williams, and and numerous other artists’ albums and for children’s media projects. But music is just one element of Payne’s colorful career.
Payne stumbled into professional acting while in his thirties. He’s done work for the Disney Channel, PBS, CBS, and even played Richard Nixon in Imagine Dragons’ music video for the double-platinum single “On Top of the World.” As an actor, he’s been everything from Boo Dog to King Lear.
Payne has also collaborated on several major theater productions as a playwright – most famously The Trail of Dreams with Steven Kapp Perry and James Arrington. Payne played the lead role in 132 of the performances, taking on the character of his own great-great-grandfather, John Brown. Brown dreams of captaining all 70,000 Latter-day Saint migrants across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley, and competes with the Angel of Death all the way.
Most iconically, Payne is known for his role as the dad in the 1989 film Saturday’s Warrior. His singing and storytelling has placed him among some of the most recognizable Latter-day Saint performers in the world. For example, his performances of James Arrington’s J. Golden! in which he played the 84-year-old swearing Latter-day Saint church leader and folk hero J. Golden Kimball, have been received by audiences from the Rockies to the Caribbean.
In 2021, the one-man show Planemaker by Marvin Payne and Guy Randle ran a total of 54 performances at the Covey Center for the Arts – a local record. About the show, the late Eric Samuelsen said, “I think that Marvin Payne’s Planemaker is the finest of all one-man pieces.”
Now, Payne is set to release his 20th album, How Far Can You See? In his seventh decade, he’s showing no signs of slowing down. To commemorate this landmark achievement, the Covey Center for the Arts is holding a special concert series during the month of September. Payne will perform in downtown Provo every Friday and Saturday.
“This gives everyone in Utah an intimate opportunity to see Marvin’s remarkable storytelling, singing, and songwriting talent for themselves,” said the Covey Center in a statement.
Tickets for How Far Can You See? are available now through the Covey Center for the Arts. Performances begin this weekend. You can hear “The Gathering Song” by Marvin Payne below!