Often compared with Ry Cooder, slide guitar maestro Rick Payne’s performances have taken him to prime time TV, to festivals and theatres throughout the UK and on tour to Europe, USA, Scandinavia and Greek Islands. He has provided the background music to a number of major BBC TV productions, for wildlife programmes on Radio 4 and for BBC World Service. He has also featured on BBC Radio 2 with Nigel Kennedy and appeared live on BBC1 ‘Holby City’

His mastery of acoustic blues takes him beyond the usual boundaries of blues festivals and clubs. He frequently plays at jazz and folk events and at literature and poetry festivals and has even played the blues at a classical music festival, on stage after the English Symphony Orchestra. A qualified guitar tutor, Rick passes his skills on to around 150 students per week at schools throughout the South West and at workshops nationwide. He is also kept busy as senior tutor and course writer here at the Acoustic Guitar Workshop

Reviewers have described his sound as: heart wrenching and passionate, delicate and scorching, seriously brilliant, totally absorbing and spellbindingly evocative with raw and fiery vocals to match.

NEW CD "The Bridge" - RICK PAYNE
The new album by master acoustic blues guitarist, Rick Payne is an acoustic tour de force. Rich arrangements, the finest playing and excellent songwriting make "The Bridge" is truly sublime roots acoustic album. Accompanied here by standout players like Stuart Gordon, Cliff Thorne and Keith Warmington, Rick Payne is in the finest fretboard form, with all his fingerpicking and slide skills combining to create a rich and powerful musical tapestry.