Gary S. Paxton
Encyclopedia
Gary S. Paxton, sometimes Pax (born May 18, 1939), is an American
record producer
, and a Grammy Award
and Dove Award winning songwriter
and recording artist
.
, Paxton was adopted at age three, where he was raised in rural poverty on a farm. He endured a troubled childhood, molested at age seven and afflicted by spinal meningitis
at eleven. His family moved to Arizona when he was twelve, and he started his first band by fourteen, playing country
and rock 'n' roll
. He spent his middle teenage years touring the American Southwest
with this and other forgotten bands.
Early stardom came as "Flip" in the pop duo Skip & Flip
(with Clyde "Skip" Battin
), courtesy of a million-selling 1959 smash the two cut in Phoenix
, Arizona, "It Was I". In what became a pattern in Paxton's early career, the song was recorded first and the group assembled second: after successfully shopping their demo to a label owner, Gary became "Flip" and Clyde became "Skip", after the man's pet poodle
s, a "group" put together just to have a name on the record. According to Paxton, he was up picking cherries on an Oregon
farm when he heard the song on a transistor radio
and realized it had become a hit. The duo made television appearances, toured with superstar deejay
Alan "Moondog" Freed
, and soon followed their success with another hit, "Cherry Pie". After this second chart appearance, the pair split.
By 1960, Paxton was living in Hollywood
, California
. A natural workaholic with an entrepreneurial verve, he had his hand in a number of projects, collaborating with others on the local scene as a performer, writer, producer, label owner, and audio engineer
. He played a major role in the making of two novelty hits in the early '60s and worked with artists like The Association
, Paul Revere & the Raiders
, The Four Freshmen
, and Tommy Roe
— over one thousand groups in total.
His work throughout this early-'60s period is scattered over countless labels, mostly his own, which he seemed to open and close on a constant basis, making regular use of the five studios he owned but rarely staying put. Over the years, working in this manner, Paxton built a reputation as an eccentric, quixotic figure in the recording industry, a talented and elusive jack-of-all-trades. Brian Wilson
was known to admire his talents, and Phil Spector
to fear him. His creativity and knack for promotion were legendary, but could also run to excess: once, after a local radio station dismissed one of his records ("Elephant Game (Part One)" by Renfro & Jackson) as "too black", he assembled a protest parade down Hollywood Boulevard
in Los Angeles
, California, consisting of fifteen cheerleaders
and a live elephant
pulling a Volkswagen
convertible
; he was arrested after the elephant got scared and began to defecate in the street.
Operating out of Los Angeles, Paxton worked in all his capacities with many artists and labels in the pop-music
industry for the next half decade, but in the later '60s, he gradually turned to the burgeoning Bakersfield sound
in country music. By 1967, he had relocated entirely to that dusty inner-California city (Bakersfield, California), where he ran a variety of businesses and founded the influential label Bakersfield International. Amidst personal loss and troubles, he moved on again, to Nashville
, Tennessee
, in 1970, and in 1971, following his partner's suicide and his own long struggles with drugs and alcohol, he converted to Christianity
after wandering into a church stoned. He quickly turned his talents to gospel music
, becoming part of the hippie
countercultural Jesus movement
, and has worked in gospel ever since, while maintaining an interest in country.
On December 29, 1980, Paxton was shot three times by hitmen
hired by a country singer he was producing, putting him out of the music world for eight years and nearly ending his life. After the trial, he visited the men in prison and forgave them. Later in the decade, he was romantically linked in the press with the prominent televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, whose musical efforts he had produced; Her infatuation with Paxton was accounted by the Washington Post
and other media as a possible cause of (her then-husband) Jim Bakker
's affair in that same period.
Paxton left Nashville in 1999 and currently lives in Branson
, Missouri
, with his fourth wife, Vicki Sue Roberts. He suffers from hepatitis C
and almost died from the disease in 1990, but continues to write and is still working on several projects at his Missouri home.
" — written by Dallas Frazier
and cut quickly with a group thrown together by Paxton's roommate Kim Fowley
, The Hollywood Argyles
— and a 1962 #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 "Along Comes Mary
", a massive hit for The Association, winning a Grammy nomination in engineering for his efforts. The following year, he produced another hit for The Association, "Cherish
", and another for Roe, "Hooray for Hazel". As Paxton moved toward the Bakersfield sound in the late '60s, 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 '70s — 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. 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.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, and a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
and Dove Award winning songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
and recording artist
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
.
Biography
Born in Coffeyville, KansasCoffeyville, Kansas
Coffeyville is a city situated along the Verdigris River in the southeastern part of Montgomery County, located in Southeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 10,295...
, Paxton was adopted at age three, where he was raised in rural poverty on a farm. He endured a troubled childhood, molested at age seven and afflicted by spinal meningitis
Meningitis
Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
at eleven. His family moved to Arizona when he was twelve, and he started his first band by fourteen, playing country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and rock 'n' roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. He spent his middle teenage years touring the American Southwest
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
with this and other forgotten bands.
Early stardom came as "Flip" in the pop duo Skip & Flip
Skip & Flip
Skip & Flip was a U.S. pop duo, consisting of Skip Battin and Flip aka Gary S...
(with Clyde "Skip" Battin
Skip Battin
Clyde "Skip" Battin was an American singer–songwriter, performer and recording artist. He is best remembered as a member of The Byrds, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, and the Flying Burrito Brothers...
), courtesy of a million-selling 1959 smash the two cut in Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
, Arizona, "It Was I". In what became a pattern in Paxton's early career, the song was recorded first and the group assembled second: after successfully shopping their demo to a label owner, Gary became "Flip" and Clyde became "Skip", after the man's pet poodle
Poodle
The Poodle is a breed of dog. The poodle breed is found officially in toy, miniature, and standard sizes, with many coat colors. Originally bred as a type of water dog, the poodle is highly intelligent and skillful in many dog sports, including agility, obedience, tracking, and even herding...
s, a "group" put together just to have a name on the record. According to Paxton, he was up picking cherries on an Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
farm when he heard the song on a transistor radio
Transistor radio
A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver using transistor-based circuitry. Following their development in 1954 they became the most popular electronic communication device in history, with billions manufactured during the 1960s and 1970s...
and realized it had become a hit. The duo made television appearances, toured with superstar deejay
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
Alan "Moondog" Freed
Alan Freed
Albert James "Alan" Freed , also known as Moondog, was an American disc-jockey. He became internationally known for promoting the mix of blues, country and rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll...
, and soon followed their success with another hit, "Cherry Pie". After this second chart appearance, the pair split.
By 1960, Paxton was living in Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. A natural workaholic with an entrepreneurial verve, he had his hand in a number of projects, collaborating with others on the local scene as a performer, writer, producer, label owner, and audio engineer
Audio engineering
An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
. He played a major role in the making of two novelty hits in the early '60s and worked with artists like The Association
The Association
The Association is a pop music band from California in the folk rock or soft rock genre. During the 1960s, they had numerous hits at or near the top of the Billboard charts and were the lead-off band at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival...
, Paul Revere & the Raiders
Paul Revere & the Raiders
Paul Revere & the Raiders is an American rock band that saw considerable U.S. mainstream success in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s with hits such as "Kicks" , "Hungry" , "Him Or Me - What's It Gonna Be?" and the 1971 No...
, The Four Freshmen
The Four Freshmen
The Four Freshmen is a multiple Grammy-nominated American male vocal band quartet that blends open-harmony jazz arrangements with the big band vocal group sounds of The Modernaires , The Pied Pipers , and The Mel-Tones , founded in the barbershop tradition...
, and Tommy Roe
Tommy Roe
Tommy Roe is an American pop music singer-songwriter.Best-remembered for his hits "Sheila" and "Dizzy" , critic Bill Dahl wrote that Roe was "widely perceived as one of the archetypal bubblegum artists of the late 1960s, but Roe cut some pretty decent rockers along the way, especially early in his...
— over one thousand groups in total.
His work throughout this early-'60s period is scattered over countless labels, mostly his own, which he seemed to open and close on a constant basis, making regular use of the five studios he owned but rarely staying put. Over the years, working in this manner, Paxton built a reputation as an eccentric, quixotic figure in the recording industry, a talented and elusive jack-of-all-trades. Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...
was known to admire his talents, and Phil Spector
Phil Spector
Phillip Harvey "Phil" Spector is an American record producer and songwriter, later known for his conviction in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson....
to fear him. His creativity and knack for promotion were legendary, but could also run to excess: once, after a local radio station dismissed one of his records ("Elephant Game (Part One)" by Renfro & Jackson) as "too black", he assembled a protest parade down Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard
-Revitalization:In recent years successful efforts have been made at cleaning up Hollywood Blvd., as the street had gained a reputation for crime and seediness. Central to these efforts was the construction of the Hollywood and Highland shopping center and adjacent Kodak Theatre in 2001...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, California, consisting of fifteen cheerleaders
Cheerleading
Cheerleading is a physical activity, sometimes a competitive sport, based on organized routines, usually ranging from one to three minutes, which contain the components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games or to participate...
and a live elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
pulling a Volkswagen
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
convertible
Convertible
A convertible is a type of automobile in which the roof can retract and fold away having windows which wind-down inside the doors, converting it from an enclosed to an open-air vehicle...
; he was arrested after the elephant got scared and began to defecate in the street.
Operating out of Los Angeles, Paxton worked in all his capacities with many artists and labels in the pop-music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
industry for the next half decade, but in the later '60s, he gradually turned to the burgeoning Bakersfield sound
Bakersfield sound
The Bakersfield sound was a genre of country music developed in the mid- to late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. The many hit singles were largely produced by Capitol Records country music head, Ken Nelson. Bakersfield country was a reaction against the slickly produced, string...
in country music. By 1967, he had relocated entirely to that dusty inner-California city (Bakersfield, California), where he ran a variety of businesses and founded the influential label Bakersfield International. Amidst personal loss and troubles, he moved on again, to Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, in 1970, and in 1971, following his partner's suicide and his own long struggles with drugs and alcohol, he converted to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
after wandering into a church stoned. He quickly turned his talents to gospel music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, becoming part of the hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
countercultural Jesus movement
Jesus movement
The Jesus movement was a movement in Christianity beginning on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s and spreading primarily through North America and Europe, before dying out by the early 1980s. It was the major Christian element within the hippie counterculture,...
, and has worked in gospel ever since, while maintaining an interest in country.
On December 29, 1980, Paxton was shot three times by hitmen
Contract killing
Contract killing is a form of murder, in which one party hires another party to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for consideration, monetary, or otherwise. The hiring party may...
hired by a country singer he was producing, putting him out of the music world for eight years and nearly ending his life. After the trial, he visited the men in prison and forgave them. Later in the decade, he was romantically linked in the press with the prominent televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, whose musical efforts he had produced; Her infatuation with Paxton was accounted by the Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
and other media as a possible cause of (her then-husband) Jim Bakker
Jim Bakker
James Orsen "Jim" Bakker is an American televangelist, a former Assemblies of God minister, and a former host of The PTL Club, a popular evangelical Christian television program.A sex scandal led to his resignation from the ministry...
's affair in that same period.
Paxton left Nashville in 1999 and currently lives in Branson
Branson, Missouri
Branson is a city in Taney County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It was named after Reuben Branson, postmaster and operator of a general store in the area in the 1880s....
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, with his fourth wife, Vicki Sue Roberts. He suffers from hepatitis C
Hepatitis C
Hepatitis C is an infectious disease primarily affecting the liver, caused by the hepatitis C virus . The infection is often asymptomatic, but chronic infection can lead to scarring of the liver and ultimately to cirrhosis, which is generally apparent after many years...
and almost died from the disease in 1990, but continues to write and is still working on several projects at his Missouri home.
Body of work
Beyond his early work as part of Skip & Flip, Paxton is best known for his involvement in two novelty hits: the 1960 #1 smash "Alley OopAlley Oop (song)
"Alley Oop" is a song written by Dallas Frazier. The song, heavily inspired by the V. T. Hamlin-created comic strip of the same name, was first recorded by Frazier as a country tune in 1957.-The Hollywood Argyles:...
" — written by Dallas Frazier
Dallas Frazier
Dallas Frazier is an American country musician and songwriter who had success in the 1950s and 60s.-Biography:Frazier was born in Spiro, Oklahoma but was raised in Bakersfield, California...
and cut quickly with a group thrown together by Paxton's roommate Kim Fowley
Kim Fowley
Kim Vincent Fowley is an American record producer, impresario, songwriter, musician, film maker, and radio actor. He is best known for his role behind a string of novelty and cult rock pop singles in the 1960s, and for managing The Runaways in the 1970s...
, The Hollywood Argyles
The Hollywood Argyles
The Hollywood Argyles were an American musical ensemble, assembled for studio recordings by the producer and songwriter Kim Fowley and his friend and fellow musician Gary Paxton...
— and a 1962 #1 hit inspired by the Mashed Potato
Mashed Potato
The Mashed Potato is a dance move which was a popular dance craze of 1962. It was danced to songs such as Dee Dee Sharp's "Mashed Potato Time". Also referred to as "mash potato" or "mashed potatoes", the move vaguely resembles that of the Twist, by Sharp's fellow Philadelphian, Chubby...
dance craze, "Monster Mash
Monster Mash
"Monster Mash" is a 1962 novelty song and the best-known song by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. The song was released as a single on Gary S. Paxton's Garpax Records label in August 1962 along with a full-length LP called The Original Monster Mash, which contained several other monster-themed tunes...
", 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 "Along Comes Mary
Along Comes Mary
"Along Comes Mary" is a song composed by Tandyn Almer, originally recorded in 1966 by The Association, and released on their debut album And Then... Along Comes the Association. It was their first hit and reached number seven on the U.S. charts. It has been covered by several artists, most notably...
", a massive hit for The Association, winning a Grammy nomination in engineering for his efforts. The following year, he produced another hit for The Association, "Cherish
Cherish (The Association song)
"Cherish" is a pop song written by Terry Kirkman and recorded by The Association. Released in 1966, the song reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in September of that year and remained in the top position for three weeks. In Canada, the song also reached number one...
", and another for Roe, "Hooray for Hazel". As Paxton moved toward the Bakersfield sound in the late '60s, he scored his first country hit in 1967 with "Hangin' On" by The Gosdin Brothers
Vern Gosdin
Vern Gosdin was an American country music singer. He idolized The Louvin Brothers and The Blue Sky Boys as a young man and sang in a gospel quartet called The Gosdin Brothers. An inheritor of the soulful honky tonk style of Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard, Gosdin was nicknamed "The Voice" by his...
.
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 '70s — writing and producing "Woman (Sensuous Woman)" for Don Gibson
Don Gibson
Donald Eugene "Don" Gibson was an American songwriter and country musician. A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Gibson penned such country standards as "Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Stop Loving You", and enjoyed a string of country hits from 1957 into the early 1970s.-Biography:Don Gibson was...
(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
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
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
The Blackwood Brothers
The Blackwood Brothers Quartet are an eight-time Grammy award-winning American Southern Gospel group. They have been around for 76 years, and were pioneers in the Christian music industry.-Musical career:...
, 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
Jesus freak
Jesus freak is a term arising from the late 1960s and early 1970s counterculture and is incorrectly used as a pejorative for those involved in the Jesus movement...
, 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
NewPax Records
NewPax Records was founded in 1975 by Gary S. Paxton as an outlet for his gregarious ideas in songwriting and engineering. This gave Paxton the edge he needed to create music that was far ahead of its time....
, another in his long series of labels, founded in 1975 as an outlet for his new ideas in songwriting and engineering. 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.
Name
Paxton makes it very clear that his name is Gary S. Paxton, not "Gary Paxton". As he often says onstage, "Don't forget the 'S' — it's one third of my whole name." The "S" stands for "Sanford".Studio albums
- 1975 - The Astonishing, Outrageous, Amazing, Incredible, Unbelievable, Different World of Gary S. Paxton
- 1977 - More from the Astonishing, Outrageous, Amazing, Incredible, Unbelievable Gary S. Paxton
- 1978 - Terminally Weird/But Godly Right
- 1979 - Gary Sanford Paxton
- 1979 - The Gospel According to Gary S.
Compilations
- 1980 - (Some Of) The Best Of Gary S. Paxton (So Far)
- 2006 - Hollywood Maverick: the Gary S. Paxton Story