Asie Reed Payton was an American blues musician, who lived most of his life in Holly Ridge, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta. Born in Washington County, Mississippi, he sang and played the guitar, but made his living as a farmer.

Near the end of his life he recorded one album, Worried, for the Fat Possum Records label, which was released after his death. He died of a heart attack.

Fat Possum tried unsuccessfully to convince Asie that the world outside Mississippi needed to hear him. But despite living below the poverty level and desperately needing the easy money of a gig, he could not be lured away from Washington County for more than a couple of hours.

Fat Possum succeeded in recording Asie twice: once at Junior Kimbrough’s club, and once at Jimmy’s Auto Care, Fat Possum’s old studio. Obviously, all the songs on Worried were recorded during these two sessions, and originally intended to be demo tapes. At the time, all we knew about Asie was that he lived in a shotgun shack — no phone, no a/c; and that whenever the fields were dry enough for tractor tires, he was working in them. When they were too wet, Asie was impossible to find. He lived in Holly Ridge almost all of his life and, like his father before him, spent Saturday nights playing in one of the two small grocery stores that qualify Holly Ridge for a name on the map– a place, instead of just a county-road intersection.
He appeared and performed in the documentary film, You See Me Laughin': The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen. There is also a track by Payton on the Big Bad Love soundtrack. Payton's song, "I Love You" from the album, Worried, was used in the closing credits of the 2002 film, The Badge. Several artists from Fat Possum were featured in the soundtrack, but it was not released.

He and his wife Mary are interred at Holly Ridge Cemetery, where Charlie Patton is also buried.

( The photo used in this video is called "Smokey's Friend and Poochie, Marks Mississippi 1983." It was made by ©Birney Imes and comes from his book "Partial to Home" published by Smithsonian Institution Press ©1994 ).

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