The California Poppy Pickers

Alshire Records founder Al Sherman assembled the California Poppy Pickers as one among multiple anonymous studio ensembles created to deliver inexpensive imitations of 1960s chart successes. Producer and songwriter Gary Paxton, whose résumé includes the novelty hit “The Monster Mash,” guided nearly every act in that circle, among them Fats and the Chessmen, Los Norte Americanos, and the Bakersfield Five. In 1965 Paxton opened his own Hollywood facility, where the revolving cast of players at times featured guitarist Clarence White, bassist Jerry Scheff, and guitarist/fiddler Gib Guilbeau; he also signed siblings Rex and Vern Gosdin, whose country single “Hangin’ On” appeared on his Bakersfield International imprint. By the close of the decade Paxton had begun supplying masters to Alshire, and at Sherman’s urging he organized the California Poppy Pickers to tap the rising country-rock wave. The lineup consisted of multi-instrumental vocalists Ken Johnson and Dennis Payne plus pedal-steel specialist Leo LeBlanc; together they issued three 1969 albums—Sounds of ’69, Hair/Aquarius, and Today’s Chart Busters—built largely from covers and thinly disguised rewrites. The project’s fourth and final release, Honky Tonk Women, was cut without Paxton’s participation and introduced an entirely different roster: singer/guitarist Mike Messer, singer/bassist Don Larson, guitarist Randy Wilcox, and drummer Tom Slipp. In truth these musicians belonged to the Christian rock outfit Wilson McKinley, and the funds earned from their single Alshire session financed the group’s independent 1970 album Jesus People’s Army: On Stage.