The Poppies

Jim Hill High School of Jackson, MS, spawned the Carvettes and the Poppies around the same period. The Carvettes were the area's dominate male group; the Poppies took the female honors. The original Poppies trio formed at Jim Hill High School with Dorothy Moore, Rosemary Taylor, and Patsy McClune. After organizing, still in high school, they became good enough to work for Billy Sherrill in Nashville doing background work. After high school, Moore elected to go to Jackson State University, but still pursued her musical activities. The Jackson State experience didn't last long -- Moore quit after her freshman semester to take advantage of an opportunity for the Poppies to record for Epic Records, with Sherrill producing. "Lullaby of Love," a Sherrill/Larry Butler composition, was a small regional hit in 1966. Taking advantage of their golden chance, the Poppies assembled a road show, the Mid-South Review, which toured the south with a Sam & Dave-type duo and a male group (possibly the Carvettes since all the acts were Jackson natives). Epic released a second single, "He's Got Real Love" b/w "He's Ready," in June 1966, three months after the first, but it didn't do as well. Yet the Poppies didn't notice, they were too busy barnstorming. Epic dropped the Poppies' Lullaby of Love LP during the tour; it consisted of songs by Sherrill, Butler, Bob McCree, and brothers Clinton and Edward Thomas. All ten songs take only 23 minutes to play. Sherrill, a masterful songwriter and producer with countless hits to his credit, couldn't work his magic with the Poppies. A third single, "Do It With Soul" (released late in 1966), was new material not featured on the LP, but its success was, again, of the local/regional variety. "There's a Pain in My Heart," the Poppies' final Epic single, felled in 1967. The girls still toured with the Mid-South Review, but the experience was far from lucrative -- the girls worked four or five days a week to clear about 30 to 35 dollars a month each. Patsy McClune left for California and continued singing background, sans Moore and Taylor, on the West Coast; Rosemary Taylor resumed her education and became a French teacher. Dorothy Moore, the Poppies' lead singer, continued as a solo act and kept the Mid-South Review rolling. She recorded two flops -- "See How They've Done My Love" and "Same Old Feeling" -- for Avon Records, but had better luck with a Malaco production distributed by Lloyd Price's GSF label entitled "Cry Like a Baby" b/w "Just the One I've Been Looking For"; it stayed on the R&B chart for five weeks in 1973. A duet on Chimneyville Records with King Floyd entitled "Don't Let Go" received good airplay and set the stage for her monster, "Misty Blue," in 1975, a million-seller that earned the Jackson, MS, songbird a well-deserved gold record.
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