Gary Puckett turns 84 today. He was born Oct. 17, 1942, in Hibbing, Minnesota, the same small town where Bob Dylanwent to high school, and he grew up in Washington state and Idaho.
Puckett formed Gary Puckett & The Union Gap in January 1967 while studying at San Diego State, according to Contemporary Musicians. He named the band after Union Gap, the Washington town near his childhood home, and the members dressed in Civil War uniforms, with Puckett taking the rank of general. Producer Jerry Fuller heard the group playing in a bar inside a bowling alley and signed them to Columbia.
The hits came fast. “Woman, Woman” reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, followed by “Young Girl” at No. 2, “Lady Willpower” at No. 2 and “Over You” at No. 7. Contemporary Musicians, via Encyclopedia.com, reports that the group sold more records than any other act in 1968, including the Beatles, and calls “Young Girl” one of that year’s top three best-selling singles in the U.S. “Young Girl” also reached No. 1 in the U.K., according to the San Diego Reader.
Their audience grew along with the hits. By special invitation of the president, the group played the White House for Prince Charles and Princess Anne, and they also headlined at Disneyland, AllMusic says. In 1969, they sold out the Yale Bowl and played to a huge crowd in New York’s Central Park.
Behind the scenes, there was friction. The band wanted to write and produce its own material, and Puckett felt boxed in by the label’s ballad formula, according to AllMusic. In 1969, they turned down a song Fuller had written for a 40-piece orchestra. They still returned to the Top 10 that fall with “This Girl Is a Woman Now,” their last hit.
The Union Gap broke up in 1971, and Puckett went solo. The group was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2009.
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