JIM PAYNE
Jim Payne is an award-winning performer, collector and producer of traditional Newfoundland music, as well one of the province’s most prolific songwriters. He is a multi-instrumentalist and stepdancer who teaches traditional Newfoundland folk dance. As a songwriter, Jim is widely known for his musical portrayals of life in this province, his willingness to write and sing about difficult and controversial issues, and his ability to compose humourous ditties directed at powerful people and institutions.
Jim teaches courses in traditional Newfoundland music and song at Memorial University and is a recipient of ArtsNL Awards for Outstanding Cultural Achievement and Arts in Education, and is a recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. He has received Cultural Tourism Awards from the provincial Dept. of Culture, the Dept. of Canadian Heritage, and Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador.
In 2016, Jim was inducted into Arts NL’s Hall of Honour, and in 2017 he was awarded the East Coast Music Association’s Stompin’ Tom Connors Award for outstanding contributions to the cultural fabric of Eastern Canada. In 2020, he was presented with Music NL’s Industry Builder Award, and was honoured with the St. John’s Folk Arts Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021.
Jim is also a seafarer who has circumnavigated the island of Newfoundland more than 20 times, sailed through the Northwest Passage, and throughout the Canadian and Scandinavian Arctic, including Greenland, Iceland and Svalbard. He has also crossed the Southern Ocean to Antarctica several times to travel to the Antarctic Peninsula, as well as South Georgia and the Falkland Islands.