Despite what Universal would have you believe by placing a phony copyright date on the back of the CD, singer, songwriter, and actor Waylon Payne's album The Drifter was originally released in 2004. The label subsequently and unceremoniously dumped him shortly thereafter. This is a reissue, pure and simple. Back then, Payne (the son of the late country hitmaker Sammi Smith and Willie Nelson's guitarist Jody Payne) was a struggling actor on television and in movies who also gigged in the music clubs of L.A. on the side. Artists like Lucinda Williams and Dwight Yoakam were regular attendees at his shows. His long suffering ambition and patience paid off as an actor first, when he landed the part of Jerry Lee Lewis in the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line. In 2007, he got his starring debut role in the indie flick Crazy, the Rick Bieber-directed movie on the life of country guitarist Hank Garland that did well for itself in film festivals in the United States and Europe.