🎸 Jimmy Payne, The Broken Spoke, and the Night That Changed Everything
By Jim St. James
When I moved to Nashville in 1998, I didn’t just chase the dream — I jumped in headfirst. I lived six blocks from the old Broken Spoke on Brick Church Pike, tucked down a holler in Darin Pulse’s Musicians Lodge, a little 4 room writer-haven that housed hopefuls like me who lived off tips, demos, CD sales and pure determination.
Back then, Nashville was smaller, rawer, and far more intimate. And if you were a songwriter in those days, the Broken Spoke Songwriters Café wasn’t just a venue — it was church. A sanctuary. A proving ground. One of the most important songwriter rooms of its time.
It sat inside a hotel just off Trinity Lane, unglamorous from the outside, but inside? Inside it was where real Nashville happened. Night after night the room filled with guitars, sweat, cheap drinks, and some of the best lyricists on earth. Writers like Tony Lane, Reese Wilson, Larry Henley and so many others would hang out there, or visit there. The stage was close. The lights were warm. The applause was honest. I lived so close to it that for me, all roads led back to the Broken Spoke.
And if you played the Spoke often — as I did, sometimes multiple nights a week — you became part of a very real family of writers who lived the grind instead of just visiting it.
~ Debi Champion: The Beating Heart of the Scene ~
One of the pillars of the entire Nashville songwriting community — then and now — was Debi Champion. Her hosting nights at the Broken Spoke were legendary.
Debi didn’t just run a writers round.
She mentored people.
She believed in people.
She created safe spaces where young writers could sharpen their craft, get back up after flops, and discover their voice.
She later took that same spirit to the Commodore Lounge in the Nashville Holiday Inn, where she still continues to host one of the city’s most important songwriter nights. In a world where many hosts come and go, Debi has remained the gold standard — a champion in every sense.
It was on her night — one packed wall to wall — that I played a set right before the legendary Jimmy Payne.
~ The Moment ~
Jimmy Payne wasn’t just another writer.
He was the man who co-wrote “Woman, Woman”, the massive hit made famous by Gary Puckett & The Union Gap in 1968. A song that lived in the DNA of anyone who grew up loving great songwriting.
I grew up hearing it on the back-dash speakers of my dad’s old Chevy — blaring through the car as we drove Indiana backroads. My dad, an amateur drummer, loved that era of music. Roger Miller. Glen Campbell. The Union Gap. The songs that shaped America.
So to be playing on the same bill as one of those writers — and with him standing right outside the green room listening — was something else.
The Spoke was completely full that night.
Not a chair open.
The kind of crowd that turns a simple writers set into a memory you never forget.
I stepped onto the stage — alone, not in the round — and played four songs. The room was warm and the audience supportive. But inside? I was sweating bullets. That old kind of nervous only big rooms or big moments can trigger.
As I walked offstage after my set toward the green room, audience still clapping and Debi Champion introducing Jimmy, he was walking toward the stage, his guitar strapped over his shoulder.
He stopped.
And he looked me straight in the eye.
~ The Advice That Changed Everything ~
“Son,” he said, “you had a great set. But you looked a little nervous.”
My heart sank.
I thought — damn it, he saw it.
Then he smiled and said something that I can still hear today:
> “Half the people are gonna love you.
Half the people may not.
So why be nervous?
It doesn’t matter.
Just get up there and do your thing.”
It hit me like a revelation.
Jimmy slapped me on the back and said,
“You’re damn good. Keep at it.”
I told him about sitting in my dad’s Chevy as a kid, listening to his song.
He grinned and said,
“Then play ‘em for your dad. And remember what I said.”
Jimmy walked out there and tore the place apart with “Woman, Woman” and his other classics. The kind of performance only a man who’s lived the songs can deliver.
And that night — in a smoky hotel bar on Brick Church Pike — something inside me shifted forever.
~ The Turning Point ~
After that moment, I never felt stage fright again.
Not in big rooms.
Not on showcases.
Not on live streams.
Not on festival stages.
Not anywhere.
Jimmy Payne flipped a switch inside me that night.
He pushed me across the invisible line between amateur and professional — the “before” and “after” of every performing artist’s journey.
And for the rest of my years in Nashville, I carried his words with me.
I still do.
I went on to share his advice with other nervous performers at the Broken Spoke, the Bluebird, Douglas Corner, The French Quarter, and every other room where I earned my stripes. His simple sentence became part of my DNA as an artist.
~ Goodbye to a Legend ~
Jimmy Payne passed away in 2023 at the age of 87.
But his songs — and the kindness he showed a young songwriter on Trinity Lane — live on.
And the Broken Spoke — though closed now — lives on too.
In stories.
In memories.
In the hearts of the songwriters who practically lived there, just like I did.
A hotel bar on Brick Church Pike where so many of us learned who we were, and where I learned who I could become.
Thanks, Jimmy.
You set me free that night.
And I never forgot it.
