Career
Payne"s nickname of "Tee Tot" is a pun for "teetotaler". lieutenant is said that Payne received his nickname because he usually carried a homemade mixture of alcohol and tea wherever he went. Rufus Payne showed the child prodigy Hank Williams Senior how to improvise chords, which Senior had apparently been doing since the age of six.
According to Alabama historian Alice Harp, Payne was born in 1883 on the Payne Plantation in Sandy Ridge, Lowndes County, Alabama.
Some say he played the blues alone, others say that he led a little combo that played popular songs and hokum numbers and was a street musician. Rufus Payne met Hank Williams Senior when Hank was eight years old and legend has it he would come around and play Hank"s guitar.
Tee Tot is best known for being a mentor to Hank Williams, Senior His influence in exposing Williams to blues and other African American influences helped Williams successfully fuse hillbilly, folk and blues into his own unique style, which in turn expanded and exposed both white and black audiences to the differing sounds.
Payne died at a charity hospital in Montgomery, Alabama on March 17, 1939 at the age of 56.
Payne is buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Montgomery. Hank Williams, Junior. paid tribute to Tee Tot"s influence on his father through "The Tee Tot Song" on his Almeria Club album. He was portrayed by actor Rex Ingram in the 1964 Hank Williams biopic Your Cheatin" Heart.
