By Theresa Timmons
For The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON — In the 1960s, Gary Puckett’s baritone begged, “Woman, woman, have you got cheating on your mind?”
Then, he made an anguished appeal to a girl who was clearly off limits, “Young girl, get out of my mind. My love for you is way out of line. Better run girl, you’re much too young girl.”
Puckett, a native of Hibbing, Minn., sold more than 4 million records back then with the Union Gap — the backing band that dressed on an album cover in Civil War outfits. He disbanded the group in 1971 and performs solo, as he will today at Hoosier Park Racing & Casino in Anderson.
Puckett, 67, lives in Clearwater, Fla., with his wife/manager, Lorrie. He talked with The Herald Bulletin recently in a phone interview.
Q: Was it always your goal to be a musician. Did you come from a musical family?
Puckett: It was not really my goal to become a musician, it was my family’s. I’m very fortunate because my parents were musical, my dad was a sax player and he had a very beautiful singing voice. My mother was a piano player. She had a very beautiful voice.
I have a big family, I have two brothers and two sisters, and everybody was required to take a lesson. They sat me in front of the piano and said, “You will play the piano.” Me, being a typical 6-year-old, I wanted to be out chasing garter snakes. But I studied piano about four years.
The guitar was always my favorite, because I found one of those in my grandmother’s attic when I was about 15. By that time, rock ‘n’ roll had come along. Bill Haley and the Comets, the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley.
Q: Those names, did they influence you in the music you made later?
Puckett: I’m sure that they did, in structure, in form, simplicities, melodic values. Yet I never wanted to be “like” anybody.
Now, lately I do find that I study people, like certain guitar players I would like to be like because they have the tone, talent, and depth that I admire. Robben Ford, Larry Carlton, Joe Bonamassa.
Q: The “Young Girl,” was it about anyone in particular?
Puckett: I wish I could tell you it was honestly. “Young Girl” was a success formula. That’s not romantic but it’s smart. It’s not about any young girl in particular but about all of them. We did it as a follow-up to “Woman, Woman” because our producer, Jerry Fuller, said, “The hardest thing to do is follow your last best.”
Q: Do you have a favorite Puckett song?
Puckett: “Woman Woman,” I like it the most. It is the first song, and because it did have such great success and it still sounds so great on the air.
It was the song that our producer, Jerry Fuller, who back then was newly hired at Columbia Records, had in his hand. He was looking for a voice like mine to sing it. I happened to find him at a time when he was looking for me.
Q: How about those Civil War uniforms?
Puckett: It was my idea to use the Civil War outfits. I knew we had to have an identity, especially in an era when there was tie-dye. If you remember, 45s were all released in a little brown wrapper. There were like 500 records per month going out to all the radio stations so I’m thinking to myself we’ve got to have an identity.
It was my idea to put a picture of us on the sleeve. And you know what? The record company fought with me over that. I thought, ‘I’m going to lose this battle, because they are Columbia Records. I’m just an unknown guy from San Diego.” But they relented.
Q: Did it work?
Puckett: Fast forward to WCOL in Columbus, Ohio, and a program director who was flippin’ through all the brown sleeves and he stopped to look at the picture and he happened to be a Civil War buff. He studied it for a second, and he said, “I wonder if the record is half as good as this picture, this could be a good one.” So he auditioned it, a “Pick to Click.” And it went to number one in Columbus, Ohio. That’s when Columbia records called me up and said we got some activity on your record.
Q: Your music is not sexually explicit by today’s standards, but in the ’60s, was there any criticism of it back then?
Puckett: Back then it was a whole different time and era, and we still had censorship. When we did Ed Sullivan, for instance, we sang ‘Young Girl.’ The track was not played live. The track was recorded, but I sang live to it. They would not let me say “Because I’m afraid we’ll go too far” but they made me say, “How can this love of ours go on.”
Q: Anything new?
Puckett: I have an album that you can only get from me — not in download, not in stores. I wrote it with my brother, David. It’s called “The Lost Tapes” and the reason for its title is that we had taken it around to all the record companies in the middle ’70s — if you remember the music of the ’70s, disco was important, and this music didn’t fit into any genre. No one wanted it. Back then, I got discouraged, and put it away. Then one day, years later, I found it and thought, “I wonder how this sounds?” I sat down, put my headphones on. I loved what I heard. So today, it is a great snapshot of me, being a writer and a producer and a player and a singer.
The Grass Roots, Gary Puckett in concert
When: 7 and 10 p.m. today, Nov. 14
Where: Hoosier Park Racing and Casino
Tickets: Shelby’s Gifts at Hoosier Park or calling (800) 526-7223
