Sitting down with John Payne

A few choice quotes from the conversation I had with flautist/saxophonist John Payne, who gigged with Van Morrison at the Catacombs and then later appeared on Astral Weeks.

From what Payne heard, here is why Morrison settled in the Boston area ...

He already had "Brown-Eyed Girl," but he was playing there [the Catacombs] for 20 people. You know the rumor of why that happened? I don't know if this is true, but he was playing a club somewhere and had a freak-out and started smashing the club's PA equipment and then no one would hire him. He came up to Boston and got a local agent ... He got a bunch of Berklee College kids together and started playing high school dances. A guy who had a Top 40 hit two years before. And then he got sick of it all and fired everybody but the bass player [Tom Kielbania].

According to Payne, the run of shows at the Catacombs didn't last for weeks, as various stories and books have previously stated, but very likely took place over a weekend, right before Morrison left the Boston area to record Astral Weeks ...

He was about to go to New York at the time. And I went in and sat in with him. After the first night they said, "Do you want to come back tomorrow?" I said, "Sure." And after the second night they said, "Do you want to join the group?" I said, "Sure." And I think I played three nights, four nights, and that's it. That's all I ever played with him. And then he went down to New York very soon thereafter.

After making the trek down to New York with Morrison, Payne and Kielbania were essentially told that while they would be paid as session musicians, their services were not needed. However, Payne was eventually allowed to play. The first song he contributed to was "Astral Weeks" ...

Which I believe, but I'm not sure, was the first time I ever played it. He might have played it once and I wouldn't notice. See he would never tell me what to do. He'd just start playing. And I was a good faker. My biggest thing is I can fake. I could figure out how to get in and play something appropriate by ear. I have a lot of weaknesses as a musician but that's not one of them. And the producer [Lewis Merenstein] just turned and said, "John, why don't you play on this." And I wasn't even supposed to be on the album. That might be one of reasons he was so willing because I was bugging him and I was frustrated. He could probably feel the frustration. Great music is happening and I want to be there!

And here's Payne discussing how he borrowed a flute from the album's much-discussed anonymous flautist ...

So I didn't have a flute with me. I asked the flute player if I could borrow his flute and he goes, "Oh man, I want to go home." This guy is being paid time-and-a-half, because it's overtime, to stay there. This guy's a studio musician—he probably did three other sessions today ... He just wanted to go home. I don't want to go home. I just begged him and begged him and begged him—"Please, please!"—and he finally let me use his flute.