Annotations for Context: Gary Paxton

Gary S. Paxton's life was as wild and unpredictable as his career. At one point, he sported a large Mennonite beard and a stovepipe hat, further adding to his eccentric persona. Paxton won a Grammy in 1980 for Best Inspirational Album, but his life took some very dramatic turns. In 1980, he was shot five times by men hired by a country star he was producing, allegedly due to contract issues. The attack sidelined him for eight years, and he carried two bullets in his body for the rest of his life. Despite this, he forgave the men personally in jail, showing his complex nature. In the mid-80s, Paxton got caught in the whirlwind of the Baker family scandal, which ended his career in gospel music. After this, he moved to Branson, Missouri, where he began performing in a mask and cape under the name "Grandpa Rock." He died in 2016, having written an estimated 2,000 songs, including titles like Jesus is My Lawyer in Heaven and When I Die, Just Bury Me at Walmart So My Wife Will Come Visit Me—just a glimpse of his offbeat sense of humor and creative energy. Around the same time, Bobby Pickett briefly left his band, The Cordials, to try acting, but after his agent passed away of a heart attack just two weeks later, he took it as a sign and rejoined the band. It was then that Pickett revisited the novelty song concept, eventually leading to the creation of Monster Mash.The monster craze that Pickett tapped into was already well underway by the early 1960s. The 1950s had seen a surge in horror films thanks to reissues and TV broadcasts, with shows like Vampira—a TV character inspired by Morticia Addams—who hosted old horror films. These shows were an affordable option for TV stations, and many followed suit with their own horror-host programs. At the same time, magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland were becoming popular, feeding into the cultural appetite for horror. The atomic age monster movies, such as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, were huge hits, adding to the genre's popularity. By the late 1950s, novelty songs like Dinner with Drac by John Zacherley (which reached No. 6 on the Billboard charts in 1958) began to take off. These songs tied into the larger horror and monster themes of the era, eventually paving the way for Pickett’s Monster Mash. However, the tone of horror shifted in the 1960s. With films like Psycho and Peeping Tom, horror became darker and more psychologically intense. Directors like John Carpenter and Wes Craven led the next wave, introducing more explicit and violent content. The grindhouse era and exploitation films took horror in a new direction, making it more explicit and less family-friendly, distancing itself from the popcorn entertainment of earlier decades.

By the time Bobby Pickett, Gary Paxton, and Lenny Capese were ready to record Monster Mash, the song’s origins were already deeply tied to the pop culture of the moment. Pickett’s memory of the session involved not only his own band but also huge names like Herb Alpert, Jimmy Rogers, and Darlene Love. The idea that Monster Mash was recorded the same day as Alpert’s Lonely Bull and Rogers’s Honeycomb is a fun tidbit, but it gets even more complicated with conflicting stories about where the recording actually took place. Darlene Love, a legendary figure in early 60s pop and Phil Spector’s go-to vocalist, claims that the recording happened at Gold Star Studios, which she would know well. But Pickett remembers a different location. It seems like there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the exact details of the recording process, but one thing's for sure: it came together with a mix of talent from some of the most influential people in pop music.The Monster Mash session itself was a lively, collaborative process. After the backing tracks were recorded, the vocalists came in to work with Pickett. The interaction between him and the backup singers—especially with Pickett singing his lines and having them answer him—added a fun, live energy to the track, almost like a mini performance. It’s easy to picture the scene, with Pickett having fun with his lines and the backup singers adding their flavor. As for the band, Monster Mash credited a group called the Crypt Kickers, made up of Gary Paxton, Johnny "Dog" McCrae, backup singers like the Blossoms, and session singer Ricky Page. There's also some confusion about who played what, with Leon Russell sometimes credited on the song but Pickett clarifying that Russell only played on the B-side. With names like these involved, it's no surprise that the song became a pop culture phenomenon. And then, of course, there's the odd detail of Ricky Page singing the "Ooh, tennis shoe, wah ooh" line in the bridge, which Pickett himself admitted he didn’t know why it was included.