I have to admit that I didn't have the highest of hopes for this album, which came complete with song titles like "Goofie Newfie" and seemed to play up the popular (i.e. condescending) image of Newfoundlanders as simple-minded hicks primarily interested in drinking and fishing. Well, happily, I couldn't have been more wrong. "Goofie Newfie" turned out to be a spirited attack on mainlanders' stereotypes (although it does mention drinking and fishing boats), and the album in general was pretty damn good. I couldn't dig up much on Mr. Payne, although this site claims he was born in Trout River and wound up, after a period of some success, playing "the worst bars in Toronto". It also refers to Payne as "Canada's version of John Prine," and based on the evidence of this album he was a very talented singer/songwriter.

No Price Tags On The Doors Of Newfoundland (which I would guess dates from the '70's) was released on Paragon Records, a tiny label that was also home to Frank Motley and King Herbert. It was produced by label boss Jack Boswell and engineer Bill Bessey, and Payne's backup musicians were Wally Brown on vocal harmony and rhythm guitar, Joe Morgan and Sam McGee on bass, Earl Jones on lead guitar and Don Jerrett on drums. All in all, the album sports a pleasingly tight old-school country sound that could easily be mistaken for the musical backing on an old Johnny Cash album.

"Goofie Newfie" is the aforementioned defence of Newfoundland, while "I Wouldn't Take A Million Dollars For A Single Maple Leaf" is a stirring paen to the many blessings we enjoy here in Canada, whatever its faults ("We live in a paradise, a rare and priceless world"). "No Price Tags On The Doors Of Newfoundland" is an up-tempo tune extolling the virtues of Payne's home province. Lastly, "Little Boats of Newfoundland," my favourite of the bunch, is practically a hymn to Newfoundland's fishing industry, complete with a spoken-word bridge backed by ghostly harmonizing.

Goofie Newfie
I Wouldn't Take A Million Dollars For A Single Maple Leaf
No Price Tags On The Doors Of Newfoundland
Little Boats Of Newfoundland