Welcome to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. A breath of fresh air.
Beautiful day. Oh, I bet any day that you’re going away. It’s a beautiful day.
Hi, thanks so much for joining me today. I want to thank you for all the terrific feedback you’ve been sending me on both my social media and through email. It really makes me happy to hear that you’re enjoying this show.
And as I keep reminding you, if you’d like me to find someone special, all you have to do is get in touch and ask. This week, we head back to the late 60s, a period distinguished as rock’s most radical, innovative, and far-reaching. A time when my next guest forged a series of massive chart hits that were always filled with angst and melodrama.
Gary Puckett and his band The Union Gap probably pioneered the hip-to-be-square concept a good couple of decades ahead of bands like Huey Lewis and The News. Gary had his Union Gap members all decked out in Civil War-era costumes. As such, they captured the hearts and imaginations of audiences all over the world.
Here’s Gary Puckett to run us through his incredible musical journey. Hello, and how are you? Hello, Gary Puckett. I’m well.
How are you? I’m terrific, thank you. Awesome. It’s been a few years since I’ve spoken to you, but I remember enjoying a conversation.
If it’s okay with you, I really want to retrace all of those incredible steps that you took in the 60s and relive that time with you a bit. Okay. Do whatever you want to do.
It’s your show. Oh, great. Love a man who’s in my hands.
That’s fabulous. Gary, 1968 was really the big year for Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, but it started away before that for you, didn’t it? Well, yeah. I mean, I had been working locally in the San Diego, California area trying to make it all happen, but I was just a local guy in a local band, and we were good.
But I wanted to get out of the nightclubs. I wanted to get into the national music scene and hopefully make some records and good ones and get out there and work on the road and be able to perform with the likes of Chicago and Creedence Clearwater and the Beach Boys and all the others that were making the scene, so to speak, at the time. It took kind of a while to figure it out and put it together, but once I did, it was like an overnight success.
Amazing. So you actually left a university career in order to pursue your ambitions of becoming a musician? Well, I guess you could say that. My folks had wanted me to go into higher education, and I don’t blame them.
I mean, it took me until I had daughters and grandkids and things to understand that parents always want their kids to do better than they did. No matter how well they did, they want their kids to do better, and they wanted me to go into higher education and hopefully medicine. They liked that idea a lot.
They were kind of pushing dentistry at me for some reason. I don’t know why. Well, it was a nice, solid career.
People would always need a dentist or a doctor. Well, it’s really true. I had gone to school a couple of years, and I just found myself working more toward the music thing.
I’d be in a band, and we’d work for the Navy or the Marines. San Diego is a military town, so I found myself working in the enlisted men’s clubs and things like that. But nightclubs, at some point, though they were fun for a while, as a young person, I found myself saying, gosh, I don’t know if I want to do this all my life.
So I thought, I’ve got to figure something out here. And I went to Los Angeles at one point, found this small agent, and I said, would you come down and take a look at my band and see if you think we have value to put out on the road? And he did, and he was sort of on the fence with us. And that’s when I found out that being on the road without hit records is really not easy.
So while we were on the road, we were up in Seattle, and I said, you know, fellas, I think I’ve figured it out. I had always had an interest in the Civil War history for the U.S., and I went, you know, I’d like to be different than everybody else out there because I had a feeling that maybe if we had a visual look about us, an appearance that was different, that it might have something to do with the success of the group, ultimately. Gary Puckett, what was your fascination with the Civil War then? I don’t know.
I guess it was just that it was all about slavery. It was all about the changing of the guard the country had split in two, basically, and the South wanted to retain the slavery so that they could continue to have cheap labor and pick their cotton and sell their cotton to countries around the world. But there were those who saw that slavery was an injustice to mankind.
I was born by the river In a little tent Oh, and just like the river I’ve been running Ever since It’s been a long, a long time coming But I know a change gonna come Oh, yes, it will It’s been too hard living But I’m afraid to die I don’t know what’s up there Beyond the sky It’s been a long, a long time coming But I know a change gonna come Oh, yes, it will I found myself looking at those books and things and I just went, you know what, I think we could dress like the Union soldiers dressed. And I grew up in the Yakima Valley. Yakima is an Indian word and name.
And Union Gap is in the southeast corner where the river and the railroad went through. And I went, that’s it. We’re going to wear Union soldier outfits.
We’re going to call it the Union Gap because it meant something to me, not to anybody else. What is the Union Gap? It’s a town in the southeast corner of the Yakima Valley. The band thought it was the dumbest thing they ever heard.
Did they? We’re going to wear Union soldier outfits. You must be crazy. So you thought at the time that you needed a gimmick to rise above everybody else that was playing in the same space? I thought that a gimmick, if you want to call it that, would put us in a different frame of mind with people.
So when we finished working up in Seattle, we went down to Portland and worked in a topless club. Fortunately, we were at one end of the club and the topless was at the other end of the club. So then from there, we went to a club in Vallejo, California, which was also a topless club.
And we didn’t know it. And as we stood up there, you know, playing our first set, there was nobody up there but us. But on the second set, the ladies came up on these dancing stages next to us.
And I had worked with dancing stages, dancing girls, but not topless. And it was very difficult to stay, you know, focused. To stay focused.
We finished there and went to, I took them to California, to Los Angeles. And there was a business there called Western Costume. Just before you get there, at this stage, are you Gary and the Remarkables or are you already Gary Puckett and the Union Gang? At this point, we are Gary and the Remarkables.
But the name was in my head and the idea was in my head. And so I said, OK, fellas, here’s where we’re going. We’re going to go down there and we’re going to get outfits from Western Costume.
Now, that’s where the movie producers and directors go if they’re going to do a movie. So we found out that the outfits were incredibly expensive. So I rented one and I took the guys and went to Tijuana, Mexico.
And I found a little tailor and held up the jacket and he just nodded his head and said, OK. And he made these beautiful, great jackets for us. Were you still getting a lot of backlash from the rest of the guys? Actually, they were they were real resistant to the outfits at first because we looked like we were going to a costume party.
And we were working in a club and it was in a bowling alley. And you had to walk into the bowling alley actually to get to go in the front door of this club. And they said, no, we’re we’re coming to your house and we’re all going together.
So, OK, let’s go. So you should have seen it. It was really kind of funny.
And we walked in, of course, and all five of us are in our union soldier garb. The bowlers turned around and looked. And the next thing you know, they’re all pointing and going, what’s going on? What’s this? For a while, we kind of go, well, here’s Paul Revere and the Raiders again, you know, and blah, blah, blah.
But then it started to catch on. It made for sort of a party atmosphere. So that was kind of the beginning.
Then I took the boys and went to a little ghost town attraction outside of San Diego. Have you ever heard of Knott’s Berry Farm? I have. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, Knott’s Berry Farm has this section where they do the Western thing. And we took a lot of pictures with the sheriff and the deputies.
And then we went to the saloon and took pictures with the saloon girls and jumped over the tombstones in the cemetery. And then I assembled it all with those photos, with songs that I had written and made this portfolio, took it to all the record companies. Most of them turned us down.
There were two companies that showed interest. One was Cold Ones and they had a group called The Monkees. I’m gonna go.
I’m gonna go. I’m gonna go. I’m gonna go.
I’m gonna go. And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home. The other company that was interested was Columbia.
I found a guy at Columbia Records, a fellow by the name of Jerry Fuller, who himself was an artist. He was setting up his office and I had walked in the front door. I asked the lady who was kind of the receptionist and I said, would you want to hear a new band? And she said, well, go down that hallway, turn right and go to the second door on your right.
So I did. And I went down, I looked in and he was standing by the wall, pounding a nail in the wall. And I said, what are you doing? He said, I’m putting up a gold record award.
And I said, OK, for what? And he said, well, it’s a song I wrote for Sam Cooke. But Sam didn’t want it. Ricky Nelson did.
And it sold four million copies. And I said, wow, I mean, I was really impressed. And I said, can I see it? And he said, sure.
So it was Ricky Nelson’s Traveling Man. Remember that song? I’m a traveling man and I’ve made a lot of stops. It’s a song I love.
I’m a traveling man and I’ve made a lot of stops all over the world. And in every port I own the heart of at least one lovely girl. I have a pretty senorita waiting for me down in old Mexico.
If you’re ever in Alaska, stop and see my cute little Eskimo. I remember watching the Nelsons on TV and waiting for the last five minutes so that Ricky could perform. So I said, please, will you look at my portfolio? And he did.
He liked what he saw and what he heard. And he asked where he could see the band. Actually, he showed up the night before.
He said he would show up. I said, I’ll be there Saturday. He showed up on Friday and he walked up to the stage at midnight.
And I looked down and I said, you’re supposed to be here tomorrow night. He said, I wanted to catch you off guard. And he did, didn’t he? Because I heard that you’d been kind of taking it easy that night anyway in your performance, waiting to impress him the following night.
That’s exactly right. I was letting the other guys sing more and, you know, saving my voice for the next night. But he just he looked up at me and said, let’s go make a record.
Wow. Gary, it was highly unusual that you’d been able to walk into Columbia and see him in the first place, wasn’t it? I mean, usually there’d be gatekeepers everywhere and you wouldn’t have been able to get to a Jerry Fuller in the way that you did. Well, that’s why I think it was kind of divinely guided.
Jerry was brand new. It’s not like he had a lot of duties yet. There was no gatekeepers and Jerry was very friendly and invited me in.
So it all worked out. Amazing. So he came down to see the band, despite the fact that you were taking it easy and letting the other guys sing, saving your voice for the star performance you were expecting the following night.
He says to you, come on down, let’s make a record. I like what I see. I just went, well, OK, let’s see what happens.
So we went out in the bowling alley, we sat in a booth and we just talked, you know, while the bowlers bowled. And he said, you know, I have a song that I think is a hit song. And I think you’ve got a talented band and I like your voice and your outfits are cool.
And there’s a whole lot to it that is really, really grand, you know. So he said, I’ll be back in four to six weeks. I have to get contracts together before I can schedule a session or whatever, you know.
So I said, OK, I’ll be waiting on you. Did you believe he would show up? Were you nervous? Were you anxious? Were you kind of trying to talk yourself down and going, oh, if this doesn’t happen? Because I can imagine you’d be filled with excitement at the possibility. Absolutely.
And you said it all perfectly, because, you know, you have those doubts. You have those, you know, kind of, well, you know, this could happen. This might not happen.
And it’ll be really sad if it doesn’t. But it’ll be really great if it does. And, you know, and you go through those changes on a daily basis.
But I kind of more felt that he was honest and sincere about the whole thing. So when he came back with contracts, we’re kind of going, this is looking pretty good. How old are you at this time? I was, let’s see, this was early 67.
So I was turning 24. So what was the song that he had for you? Woman, Woman, Have You Got Cheating on Your Mind, written by a couple of guys from Nashville. And they had recorded it as a country record.
And it sounded very country, had a fuzz guitar in it and, you know, all the country elements. But Jerry heard through all of that. He says, I hear a hit song.
I just hear it being done differently. The guy in the song is going, wait a minute, I love you. But I can see you’re looking at somebody else and you’ve got cheating on your mind.
Woman, woman, have you got cheating on your mind, on your mind? Something’s wrong between us that your laughter cannot hide And you’re afraid to let your eyes meet mine And lately when I love you, I know you’re not satisfied Woman, woman, have you got cheating on your mind, on your mind? Gary Puckett and The Union Gap with Woman, Woman, their very first hit that put them on the top of the charts and along the path towards fame and fortune. Don’t go anywhere, Gary’s only getting started.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Thanks for hanging in.
We’ve already heard how Gary Puckett’s wild idea of costuming his band in Civil War outfits and his dogged determination to get ahead had started to pay off. Thanks to a serendipitous meeting with newly appointed Columbia Records executive Jerry Fuller, the band managed to secure their very first record deal. It was a song that suited Gary’s melodramatic crooning and he and the band played and promoted it wherever they could.
It was a marvelous experience, I’ve got to say. August 17, we went into the studio. All Union Gap were there.
Whatever Jerry said was law. He brought in a 30-piece orchestra. We had strings and horns and rhythm section and we had some of the members, they became the Wrecking Crew.
And you’ve researched that, I’m sure, and found out. There were 12 or 15 players that were considered to be a part of the Wrecking Crew. That came later, that name and all that, but Hal Blaine was there.
Howard Roberts was there. Carol Kay was there. Mike Dacey, others who were considered to be a part of the Wrecking Crew.
Glenn Campbell was there. He was on many of our first recordings throughout the first two albums. Wow, didn’t know that.
Yeah, and we got to know Glenn pretty well and I was a big fan of his. I loved his voice, I loved his television program, I loved his records. I am a lineman for the county And I drive the main road Searching in the sun for another hope alone I hear you singing in the wire I can hear you through the wine And a Wichita lineman Is still on the line Glenn was there playing fantastic guitar and just being Mr. Funnyman at times.
So it was really, really a lot of fun to do. But that day was special. I can imagine.
And it must have been quite daunting for you, too, to have all of those people that they’d invested so heavily into this song. Well, it was. Jerry was well organized.
He knew what he wanted. He knew how to get it. We were doing three songs that day.
It was Union. So they would do a three one hour sessions that were 50 minutes with a 10 minute break. So Jerry had to get that track down in 50 minutes.
And he was able to do that somehow. It, to me, was awesome. It was a little frightening, a little electric, you know.
Now, they had a vocal booth that I was to sit in, just a little tiny booth. And the orchestra was all around me. So I was supposed to sing with the orchestra.
But when I put on the headphones and I heard the drums do their thing and the strings go on the gliss. It was so beautiful that I just, I became emotionally overwhelmed and I couldn’t even sing. I said, you guys are going to have to go on without me because I can’t sing.
This is impossible. I want to listen. I’m going to record my part later.
That’s what we did. They played the track perfectly within the 50 minutes. And I think it was the next day that we recorded the vocal.
But it was a swell, special day. I bet. Would you normally sing sitting down? Wouldn’t you normally stand up to sing? Yeah, normally.
And did you stand up the next day when you recorded or you did it sitting down? Yeah, I think I did. But, you know, there were times when I would sit down to sing. But I remember myself sitting down in that booth in order to try to sing.
It didn’t happen. No, it didn’t happen. Well, that must have been one of the first tracks, though, where the vocal and the orchestra were split from each other where you overdubbed it afterwards, wouldn’t it? That wasn’t that popular at the time.
Well, no, people did that. We recorded first on eight tracks. So the producers in those days needed to know how to put tracks together, bouncing tracks, so to speak.
So, you know, to create a stereo image and all of that and leave room for background vocals and leave room for a lead vocal and all that. And Jerry was smart. He had good engineers and they knew what to do.
He was pretty special, Jerry Fuller, wasn’t he? I mean, he really was the key to your success. I wonder what would have happened, and I’m sure you ask yourself often, what would have happened if that meeting with him hadn’t have happened at the time. I would have continued looking.
I don’t know that it would have. I bet you would. You were pretty determined, right? Yeah, but I don’t know if it would have turned out the way that it turned out, because we had extreme success, you know, in 68 particularly.
Jerry was smart. He would say, first the song, then the singer. If a song is a hit song, it’s a hit song.
In fact, do you know who Morrissey is? Yeah. Contemporary artist, right? Yeah, he recently did an album of older songs. And Lady Willpower was one of the songs that he did.
And his comment was, a great song is a great song. And he doesn’t sing like I do, but he did a great version of Lady Willpower. Endlessly I know you want to see me But you’re afraid Of what I might have on my mind One thing you can be sure of I’ll take good care of your road If you will let me give you mine So anyway, Jerry would say, song first, singer next, and all the other picture around it after that.
Whenever I get to hear a woman on the air, a young girl or whatever, when I get to hear them on the air, I think, those are great sounding records. And they don’t sound dated. No, they don’t.
No, they still hold up brilliantly today. Yeah, and that was one of Jerry’s strengths. He knew how to give them longevity, you know.
And many of the records of that era that have 12 string, for instance, can sound kind of dated. But my records sound great. And what an incredible year 1968 was for you.
You had six consecutive gold records in one year. You wouldn’t have had time to touch the ground. Tell me about what happened after Woman, Woman.
Well, then we started to go out on the road. I mean, first of all, Woman, Woman was getting split airplay on radio stations because I’m sure you remember that they had an A side and a B side. And they were different, you know.
So radio stations could choose which side they wanted to play. And some stations were playing Woman, Woman. Others were playing Don’t Make Promises.
It seems the songs we’re singing Are all about tomorrow Tunes of promises you can’t keep Every moment bringing A love I can only borrow You’re telling me lies When you’re asleep Do you think I’m not aware Of what you’re saying Or why you’re saying it Is it hard to keep me aware You want me staying Don’t go on betraying Don’t make promises that you can’t keep Don’t make promises that you can’t keep Jerry said to me at one point, You know, I think we might have to go in and record and try again because we’re getting pushback from one side to the other. One station wants this one, one station wants that one. Well, one of the keys to the success, I believe, was my I’m going to call it purely brilliant, but accidental brilliance in the outfits that I chose to wear.
And the fact that before we got Woman, Woman recorded, I kept pounding the record company that when the record was printed and came out that they put a picture of us on the sleeve of the record and they kept telling me that they never did that for brand new groups. They just always used the brown or the black or the white or whatever color it was going to be. And that was it.
You know, and I kept saying, no, you’ve got to put a picture of this group. And I kept on negotiating, I’ll call it. And finally, they relented and we went into a school in Van Nuys that had been destroyed by the wrecking ball.
And if you’ve ever seen the picture on Woman, Woman, we were positioned on the stage in the auditorium that was all crashed down. I remember it, yeah. And they did it in sepia tone, which was the old style of photography, you know.
And it was a fabulous photograph. And turns out that there was a disc jockey program director in Columbus, Ohio. Bob was a Civil War historian.
Guess what? When he’s going through the new records, you know, flipping through them, he says, Whoa, what is this picture? Wow, what a fantastic picture. I wonder what this record sounds like. So he put it on as an audition and he loved the record.
So he put it on his station as what he liked to call a pick to click. And it went to number one. That’s when the regional office called me in San Diego and they said, you have a hit record.
I said, I do? They said, we’re going to bring you to Cleveland. We’re going to put you to work in a club here. So we went to Cleveland and we went to work in the club.
And in the daytime, we’d get up and, you know, we promoted that record. And it started catching on. And then there was a disc jockey.
And you remember how disc jockeys could be in those days. They could do what they wanted to do, you know, and he would come to the club and broadcast from the club and just have a great, great time. And he helped as well.
So we saw woman, woman jump on the billboard charts and then move up. And that’s when they started to book us out onto the road. And that’s when we started to get sick.
And the reason was because we did everything. We picked up the gear. We put it in the truck.
We took it out of the truck. We took it into the club. We set it up.
We did the sound check. We did the show. We’d tear it down, put it back in.
And we did that for, I don’t know, a couple of months. And we drove ourselves and we ended up with flus and colds. Totally run down.
Just run down. But we were still pumped by the fact that the record was rising on the charts. And so we got through it and ended up doing our very first radio promotion show.
There were, I think, eight acts on this show. And one of them I remember was the Lemon Pipers. We closed the first half of the show.
It was pretty awesome to be in front of 20,000 people. I have to laugh about it now because it was a horrible feeling. We only had one hit record and we had to play 20 minutes and the crowd for 20 minutes just went, boom! Imagine 20,000 people, boom! Anyway, I knew that they didn’t really mean it.
They were sort of polite when we played Woman, Woman, but they wanted to see the closers. They wanted to see Junior Walker and the All Stars. They wanted to see Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, so we soldiered on.
In your uniforms. And of course, it wasn’t long until you had your next big hit, in fact, an even bigger hit. Yes, Young Girl followed it.
Woman, Woman sold about a million and a half or more, I guess, and then it leveled off and started a slow descent. Young Girl came on and immediately sold about two and a half million. I just want to talk about Jerry Fuller’s lyrics for a little bit because the songs that you were singing had kind of almost bizarrely pedophilic lyrics, didn’t they? They weren’t your average kind of love songs.
I’ll take exception to what you say, because if you listen to the lyric to Young Girl, he says to the girl, beneath your perfume and makeup, you’re just a baby in disguise. You led me to believe that you were old enough to give me love. But now I find out that you’re not.
So go away. Get out of my mind. My love for you is out of line.
Go away. That’s basically what the song is saying. I never look at it as a pedophilia kind of thing.
Get out of my mind. My love for you is way out of line. Better run, girl.
Don’t watch too long, girl. With all the charms of a woman, you’ve kept the secret of your youth. You led me to believe you’re old enough to give me love.
And now it hurts to know the truth. Young girl, get out of my mind. My love for you is way out of line.
Better run, girl. Don’t watch too long, girl. Beneath your perfume and makeup, you’re just a baby in disguise.
And though you know that it’s wrong to be alone with me, that come on look is in your eyes. Whoa. Young girl, get out of my mind.
My love for you is way out of line. Better run, girl. Don’t watch too long, girl.
The song Young Girl was on everyone’s lips. Garin Puckett and the Union Gap were flying high and basking in their success. 1968 was indeed their year.
But the end of the decade was near and brought with it a whole lot of change. We’ll be back in a sec to hear what comes next.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Welcome back.
Over the years, Gary Puckett has entertained a lot of criticism about the lyrics to Young Girl, and he’s always defended the song’s creator, Jerry Fuller. Gary does admit, though, that Fuller seemed to write more intense love songs than what were around at the time. Yeah, maybe so, but there’s many others.
Did you ever hear Glee do their thing with Young Girl and Don’t Stand So Close to me? They’re very much the same, and that was Sting talking about, you know, and Roxanne and those other songs, you know, they’re very blatant in a sense. With all the charms of a woman, you kept the secret of your youth. You know, to me, that was like a truth, and I lived through those things oftentimes.
You led me to believe you’re old enough to give me love, and now it hurts to know the truth. We were all young people at one time, you know? Yes, we were. It gave us a wave to ride, you know, a crest of a wave, and Lady Willpower followed with another 2 1⁄2 to 3 million records.
Lady Willpower It’s now or never Give your love to me And I’ll shower your heart With tenderness endlessly I know you want to see me But you’re afraid Of what I might have on my mind One thing you can be sure of I’ll take good care of your love If you will let me give you mine Lady Willpower It’s now or never Give your love to me And I’ll shower your heart With tenderness endlessly 68 was just a special year for Gary Puckett and the Union Gang. You’re on top of the world. You’ve got six consecutive gold records in one year, and I think that was more than any other band of any time ever had, wasn’t it? Well, they say that, and we sold more records than any other artist.
They say, in 1968, and then they say, including the Beatles, and I always say, well, they were just having a bad year, and I think they were. That whole thing with Yoko and, you know, Linda and Johnny and all that, you know, you know the stuff. So what happens for Gary Puckett and the Union Gang come 1969? Actually, we had a very good year that year, too.
That was the year that we actually did the Command Performance, or was it 70? I think it was going into 69. No, it’s hard sometimes for me to put that exact. I think it was in August of 69.
And Gary Puckett, I’ve got to tell you, it’s hard for anybody to put years in perspective when you get to this age. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.
I can actually say that I did a Command Performance for the King of England. So 69, you’re still doing it big time. You’ve had more hits.
They were all written by Jerry Fuller, weren’t they? He wrote Young Girl, Lady Willpower, and Over You. And I did a lot of songwriting together. We wrote things like Daylight Stranger and Now and Then and other album cuts.
We wrote a song called The Pleasure of You, which I thought was a great song and he thought could be a single. And there was a guy by the name of Jack Bediant and the Chessmen, you may be able to find him online as well, who recorded it and they thought that he would have a big hit with it. But I guess he was a little bit too much like Gary Puckett.
I don’t know. He didn’t have a hit with it and I wish he would have. And then there started to be trouble within the ranks of the Union Gap, didn’t there? Yeah.
Kerry Chater and Gary Witham, his writing partner, decided to stay at home and they had gotten a deal and they wanted to stay home, write songs, not travel. And so they did and we changed the band and there were other members. It wasn’t the same, yeah.
No, we changed the recipe of the cake. That’s right. It doesn’t come out the same.
You must have all been exhausted from that huge year that you’d had. It’s no wonder that he wanted to stay at home. What brought the downfall for Gary Puckett and the Union Gap? Well, to some degree, yes.
There were also other things happening that were just a part of the world machinations. 1969 into 70, they were trying to wind down the Vietnam War. Music tastes were changing.
People were starting to dress differently. When the 70s came in, everything was changing. We had Glitter Rock, if you recall, with Banga Dong and David Bowie and all that kind of stuff.
And the English invasion was kind of over, as it were, but there were artists who succeeded and survived, but they came in late in the 60s. Elton John, Stevie Wonder. At any rate, I decided I was going to take a year off and write songs and come back, and everybody would be, Arms open wide! Let’s go, Gary! It didn’t work out that way.
Basically, a lot of the 60s artists were just kind of ostracized. We were just kind of booted out. To make way for the new guy.
Yeah, to make way for the new whatever-it-is type of music. It’s a little bit funny This feeling inside I’m not one of those who can easily hide I don’t have much money But boy if I did I’d buy a big house where We both could live If I was a sculptor But then again, no Or a man who makes potions And a travelling show I know it’s not much But it’s the best I can do My gift is my song And this one’s for you You kind of paved the way for all those glam rockers, the David Bowies and for the Elton Johns, with all their gimmick and get-ups and everything. You were one of the originals that thought, let’s give them a whole show.
Well, you know, that’s kind of true, and I appreciate you singing that and expressing it. But when things change, they just change, and there’s always unintended consequences. So throughout the 70s, I found myself kind of reeling.
I was, for a year, I was studying dance, I was studying acting, I was writing songs, I was just really busy thinking, I’m preparing to come back. But when I made the effort to come back, nobody was interested. Times had changed.
Yeah. Bob Dylan said it. The times, they are changing, you know, and they did.
Did you manage to keep your glass half full during those years? Because I can imagine that to come down from being so high, there must have been times where you slipped down and go, oh, I made a mistake, or, you know, what’s happened here, or I’m depressed. How was it emotionally for you? Well, there were low times, obviously, and I had been married and I went through a divorce. California law said the woman gets everything, you guys don’t get anything, you know, that kind of thing.
So it was a bit depressing to have come from such a high place, you know, and making really good money and all that kind of stuff, and it all going to the divorce. But that aside, I was willing to do whatever was necessary to continue on. So there came a point in the late 70s, finally, that I moved out of Los Angeles and said I’m going to go start from square one again, go back to the nightclubs, which I did, and worked as a duo with a friend of mine.
We worked in nightclubs again. People came to see me. They lined up.
And so we did whatever we could to please the people. They came, they listened, and the people supported me in that regard. The audience never forgot you.
The record companies might have shoved you aside, but the audience never forgot you, and so much so that you got another break when you were tapped on the shoulder to open for the Monkees on their 20th anniversary tour, right? That’s true. It was actually two years before that. I had done a concert, and a guy came to me and said, my boss wants to talk with you.
And I said, okay. So I went into New York City, and he said, I’m working with the Turtles, and I’m working with the Association. And he said, I’d like to work with you as well.
And I said, okay, let’s go to work and do what we can do. So I suggested to them that they put the three of us out on tour. They said, great idea.
We’re going to add a group to it. So it was Spanky and Our Gang, Gary Puckett and the Uni Gap, the Association, and the Turtles, and it was called Happy Together. And we worked nine months of 1984 as the first Happy Together tour.
Imagine me and you, I do I think about you day and night It’s only right To think about the girl you love And hold you tight So happy together If I should call you up Invest a dime And you’d say you belong to me Lose my mind Imagine how the world could be So very fine So happy together I can’t see me loving nobody but you For all my life When you’re with me Maybe the skies will be blue For all my life Me and you, you and me No matter how they toss the dice It had to be The only one for me is you And you for me So happy together In 1986, the same people produced the Monkees 20-year reunion tour. And all those women were now 20 years older and had 15-year-old daughters who were big fans of the Monkees. And so we did the biggest tour of that year together with Herman’s Hermits, the Grassroots, myself, and the Monkees Closed, you know, so it was fantastic.
So we were kind of off again, you know, and it was all happy. You’re amazing. You’re such an ideas man.
I didn’t realize that it was you that had founded the whole Happy Together Tour stuff because that’s still going today, isn’t it? It is. I’ll be on it again this year. I’ve become kind of a mainstay with the Happy Together Tour and it’s great.
It’s a little demanding, but don’t you know that every show is sold out. People love that tour. Yeah, absolutely.
Tell me what it was like going out with the Monkees. Oh, it was exciting. Getting to know the Monkees as people, that was a lot of fun.
There were internal problems, you know, that being close to them, I would try to let them know that they should just forget their differences and come together for three months in the summertime, go out and make $20 million, which they could do, and then part ways and next year come back together again. They were good people in their own way, you know, and I love them. I love their music.
What’s your favorite Monkees song? Probably Sleepy Gene. What’s the name of that song? Sleepy Gene Do-do-do What it means To a daydream believer That’s the one. Daydream believer And a homecoming cookie Cheer up Sleepy Gene Oh, what can it mean To a daydream believer And a homecoming queen Cheer up Sleepy Gene Oh, what can it mean To a daydream believer And a homecoming queen So you’ve come full circle.
You’ve gone from the nightclubs back to the nightclubs. You’ve gone from the top back to the top, and you’ve gone from touring back to touring again. I bet in 1968 you didn’t think you’d still be doing it.
No, I did not. In 1968, we did 270 concert days. Never thought that I’d be here at this age 55 years later continuing to do this, and I love it.
I love the people. I love how they love the songs and how they just sing along. And you don’t have to cart your own gear in and out of gigs anymore either.
I just carry my own guitar. That’s all. Perfect.
Gary Puckett, fabulous chatting with you. Thank you so much for your time. You’ve been more than generous.
What a trooper you are. Thank you. I hope that you’ll come and see the show, and when you do, please come and say hello to me.
That invitation goes to you too. If you’re heading out to see a Gary Puckett show, go and say g’day to him. He really does mean it when he says he loves his audience.
And that’s it from me today. Hope you’ve enjoyed the show. Who would you like to hear from next week? Chaz and Dave? Bruce Coburn? Or maybe John Ford Coley? Why don’t you let me know by sending me a message through the website abreathoffreshair.com.au I’ll see you then.
Thanks again for your ears. Bye now. Oh baby any day That you’re gone away It’s a beautiful day.