Birthday related (cont.)
Kerry Chater-Gary Puckett & The Union Gap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1CLjF8Q8xo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xw3pjpRpig
I still think this is the Union Gap's best record . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7yeC74nF94. . . and, apparently, these days Gary Puckett thinks he and the original Gap pulled the trigger
too soon on challenging the dominance of their producer Jerry Fuller, who co-wrote some of
their later hits and continued to smother the group's forgotten early R&B influences.
The kicker: Fuller was first tipped to the Union Gap when they gigged in San Diego; the Gap
expected him to come see their second evening set and, looking to save their energy a bit for
that, played a first set highlighting their softer material. They didn't know Fuller had arrived
early and caught that softer side and ran with it, even if "Woman, Woman" still showed subtle
traces of their soul influences.
The Gap also wanted a little more say in their songwriting; they weren't great songwriters
themselves but Gary Puckett and Kerry Chater could at least write material (maybe the best
of those was a collaboration between Puckett, Chater, and Gapper Gary Withem, "If The Day
Would Come," the flip side of "Over You") and they fenced with Fuller over being allowed to
put more of their own material on their albums if Fuller---probably at Columbia Records'
insistence (Clive Davis, who ran the label at the time, fancied himself a hipster with all the
rock legends he was signing and with allowing Miles Davis to stay his experimental course,
but even he wasn't above milking a success on the singles charts when it suited him)---was
running the show with the group's singles.
Apparently, it came to a head over what became the Gap's fifth top twenty hit. With Puckett
and, apparently, Chater leading the charge, the Gap refused Fuller's pick for their next single
. . . especially when they showed up to a recording session to find a 40-piece orchestra
waiting for them. (They hadn't worked with session ensembles that big on their previous
recordings, apparently.) I've seen some stories suggesting Fuller wanted Puckett alone
with that orchestra, without the group, but the bottom line was Puckett tiring of the Fuller
material---possibly including that the stuff picked for singles tended to repeat music motifs
used in the previous hits (something that also proved a trait of the Classics IV's singles,
which invariably featured one or another re-make of "Spooky's" guitar hook
somewhere)
---and the group refusing the orchestra. Fuller took a hike and never worked with the group
again, and the hits dried up after "Don't Give In to Him" (which missed the top ten) and "This
Girl is a Woman Now" (number two, a la "Young Girl" and "Lady Willpower"). With two
personnel changes the Union Gap soldiered on until they imploded after a 1971 appearance
at the Orange County Fair---well after Puckett gave in to Columbia and went solo, officially,
though he'd kept the Gap as his touring group.
Gary Puckett has long since been an oldies circuit figure; Kerry Chater has made a respected
career as a Nashville songwriter. (The Nashville connection was no fluke; "Woman, Woman"
was co-written by "Outlaw" legend Tompall Glaser's brother, Jim.)
Classic Union Gap misstep: the back cover art for their third album,
Incredible, was
a near-exact replica of that which graced the groundbreaking (for pop/rock/blues) Mike
Bloomfield-Al Kooper-Steve Stills jam album,
Super Session. If that was their idea
of trying to hip up, it's small wonder they had so little real shelf life left to come . . .