Clif Payne

Background

About Clif Payne

Clif was born in Harlem, raised in Indiana and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. His vocals span the genres of jazz, R&B, gospel, blues, rock, folk and pop. Clif is "a lush tenor with soaring melismas in his individual passages." Don Heckman, LA Times. Clif has sung with Freda Payne, Evelyn "Champagne" King, Norman Connors, Bobby McFerrin, Sheena Easton, American Idol's Peggy Blu, 4Play's Harvey Mason, Hiroshima & former Chicago vocalist Bill Champlin. Clif has opened for Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis & Dionne Warwick. Welcome To My World is Clif's debut solo album released in 2016 and features Clif singing a duet-"No Payne, No Gain"-with the legendary R&B/Jazz vocalist Freda Payne. She is best known for her hit song "Band Of Gold." A dance mix of "No Payne, No Gain" produced by the UK's Nigel Lowis was on the 2016 Grammy ballot for nomination for Best R&B Vocal. The song was written by R&B Hall of Fame's Preston Glass & spent 2 weeks atop the Soul/R&B charts in the UK, with the title "UK’s Soul Song of the Year." Later in 2016, Clif & Freda sang their duet in LA at Herb Alpert's Club Vibrato. Also on Welcome To My World are original En Vogue vocalist Maxine Jones & Midnight Star's Reggie Calloway. WTMW was produced Preston Glass, and Grammy orchestra director Larry Batiste. Clif can be heard on three 2017 releases: Dynamic Duets-Clif teams up with an array of musical legends including George Benson and Little Anthony on this Preston Glass-produced album. Love and Compassion- produced by Glass includes a track featuring The Manhattan's Gerald Alston and Clif's Welcome To My World track,"Peace Is More (Than The Absence of War)." Disco Soul Gold-the #1 R&B/Soul album in the UK for 2017, was produced by Nigel Lowis and includes the dance mix of "No Payne, No Gain." Clif's 2nd solo album, TOO, and again features a duet by Freda and Clif.