Gary S. Paxton obit

Gary Paxton, 'Monster Mash' producer – obituary

 

He was not on the list.

My friend Gary S. Paxton has passed away a few days ago.

Gary was an extremely talented musician that produced #1 hit records in rock, country and gospel music. As a singer-songwriter of a teenage duo with a hit song that sold a million records, he toured America with legendary DJ Alan Freed in 1959. From 1959 until the time of his passing, he produced thousands of records for a wide variety of musicians. He was both admired and feared by his peers including Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and Buck Owens.

I got to know Gary because of his connection with Richard Berry, songwriter of LOUIE LOUIE, as well as his role as producer of the first album by Paul Revere & the Raiders.

Gary, along with his then-business partner Kim Fowley, produced a handful of Richard Berry records in the early 1960s after Richard’s contract with the Flip Records label had expired.

One of my proudest moments was helping facilitate the proper reissue of these recordings, as well as the original Flip recordings, which both found a loving home with Ace Records of UK.

Gary S. Paxton’s first success in the music business was with the singing duo Skip & Flip, whose initial recording was “It Was I,” which entered the Billboard Top 20 in 1959, peaking at No. 11.

The duo consisted of Gary and Clyde Battin, who were both part of The Pledges, a rock band based in Tucson, Arizona.

As Gary explained to me, the song was originally a demo recording sent to record label that Gary didn’t follow up on. He discovered that the song became a hit record after he moved from Tucson to Tacoma, Washington. He heard the song on the radio while he was working a job picking fruit in an orchard, and didn’t even recognize his own voice. When he contacted Brent Records, the New York label that released this record, they told him they had been trying to get ahold of him, and immediately made plans for him to rejoin his old bandmate for a nationwide tour that included television appearances on American Bandstand.

The duo, which was re-named “Skip & Flip” by the record label, lasted for a few years before it dissolved, as their partnership fell apart when Gary’s wife decided to be with Clyde.

Gary moved to Hollywood, where he linked up with Kim Fowley to produce records together, which included “Alley Oop” by the Hollywood Argyles, their studio project that became a band, featuring with Gary on lead vocals.

After “Alley Oop,” Gary oversaw a similar project that he organized – Bobby “Boris” Pickett & the Crypt Keepers, who recorded a little song called “Monster Mash.”

There’s so much more that could be said about Gary S. Paxton…. so much more than I can share with this little blog post..

My friend Alec Palao, who oversaw all the great Ace reissues of Gary’s rock and roll legacy, shared what is likely to be one of the best tributes ever written for our friend.

In the meantime, I leave you with a short video… a small sample of some of the footage that I shot with Gary at his home in Nashville in 1998. He talks about his special storage trailer, the band Limey and the Yanks, Red West (Elvis Presley‘s bodyguard) and some of the recordings he did with Richard Berry.

Rest in peace, Gary.

Beyond his early work as part of Skip & Flip, Paxton is best known for his involvement in two novelty hits: the 1960 No. 1 smash "Alley Oop" — written by Dallas Frazier and cut quickly with a group thrown together by Paxton's roommate Kim Fowley, the Hollywood Argyles — and a 1962 No. 1 hit inspired by the Mashed Potato dance craze, "Monster Mash", which Paxton produced and recorded with its author Bobby "Boris" Pickett and another assembled group billed as the Cryptkickers.

In 1965, he produced "Sweet Pea", a hit for Tommy Roe, and engineered "Along Comes Mary", a hit for the Association, winning a Grammy nomination in engineering for his efforts. The following year, he engineered another hit for the Association, "Cherish", and another for Roe, "Hooray for Hazel". As Paxton moved toward the Bakersfield sound in the late 1960s, he scored his first country hit in 1967 with "Hangin' On" by the Gosdin Brothers.

In the wake of his conversion to Christianity, Paxton focused his efforts on gospel music. He still kept one foot in the world of secular country during the early 1970s — writing and producing "Woman (Sensuous Woman)" for Don Gibson (a Grammy nominee and a million-plus seller in three different versions) along with two other country-chart hits, and at one point signing with RCA Records as a solo country artist — but gospel was now his chief priority. In 1973 he wrote and produced "L-O-V-E" for the Blackwood Brothers, who took home the Grammy for Best Gospel Performance. In 1975, Paxton won the Best Inspirational Grammy for his album The Astonishing, Outrageous, Amazing, Incredible, Unbelievable, Different World of Gary S. Paxton, which contained his oft-recorded devotional song "He Was There All the Time". Appearing on his gospel album covers in a halo of facial hair and a tall-top cowboy hat, Paxton infused his religious work with the same eccentricity, individuality, and hippie humor that had characterized his 60s material in Los Angeles: acting the role of the Jesus freak, likening himself to "an armpit in the body of Christ", and crafting song titles like "When the Meat Wagon Comes for You", "Will There Be Hippies in Heaven?", "I'm a Fool for Christ (Whose Fool Are You?)", and "Jesus Is My Lawyer in Heaven".

Paxton's gospel work was released through NewPax Records, another in his long series of labels, founded in 1975 as an outlet for his new ideas in songwriting and engineering. The label also released recordings by other Christian acts, including the Christian alternative rock band Daniel Amos, who released their albums ¡Alarma! and Doppelgänger through the label in the early 1980s. NewPax was closely linked with Paragon Associates, with which it eventually merged. Paxton was inducted into the Country Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1999 on the basis of his innovation and accomplishments in the field and his production and writing for numerous noted artists in the industry.