Gary Puckett was known for pop ballads during the 1960s, but Monday in Savannah Center he strapped on an electric guitar and briefly played like a folk rocker.
And it was all because of Bob Dylan.
Puckett picked up the beat on Dylan’s song “Quinn the Eskimo.” It was a far cry from Puckett’s soft rock hits like “Woman, Woman,” “Over You” and “Young Girl.”
For Puckett, the Dylan connection is Hibbing, Minnesota. He was born there and Dylan lived there while growing up.
“They’re working on a project to honor Bob in Hibbing,” Puckett told a sold out crowd. “They said they would name a street after me, but I can’ find it on my GPS.”
What Puckett did find was an appreciative big fan base in The Villages, after Rocky and the Rollers opened the show.
The fans loudly applauded and cheered when Puckett opened the concert with “Lady Willpower.” It is a quintessential track for Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, featuring mellow music, romantic lyrics and a soaring vocal.
That was the formula that turned Puckett and his band into consistent hit makers in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
He kept the mellow mood with “Over You,” and “Don’t Give In to Him,” and it suited the late afternoon crowd.
“What time is it, about 5:30?” Puckett asked the audience. “That’s what happens when you get older; you play early shows. We’re all going to be in bed by nine tonight.”
Puckett drifted from his personal hit list to cover “You Better Sit Down Kids,” a song by Sonny and Cher.
“Back in the old days I thought Sonny and Cher had a perfect life,” he said. “Then they wrote this song about their divorce.” Puckett gave the number a kind edgy, musical twist, adding some power to the vocal.
The band still maintains its Union Army look, with black uniforms from the Civil War era.
Puckett explained that back in the 1960s, he wanted the band to get noticed with a picture on the record sleeve. “I fought with the record company to put our picture on it,” he said.
It turned out that a radio program director in Columbus, Ohio, was a Civil War buff and liked the outfits. He played a single and it went to No. 1 in Columbus.
“That song was ‘Woman Woman,” and I’m going to sing it for you now,” Puckett said. The singer still found range to hit the high notes and earned a huge ovation.
“Can you believe its fif-fif-fif – I have a hard time saying the F word—50 years since we started playing,” Puckett said with a smile. “It’s hard to believe 50 years could go by so fast.”
The singer then paid tribute to the late Glen Campbell.
“Glen was a great guitarist and he played on a couple of our albums,” Puckett said. He then sang a heartfelt “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” one of Campbell’s early hits.
There was more emotional power on “This Girl Is a Woman.” Puckett’s performance and music pleased his fans.
“These lyrics and these songs mean a lot,” said Villager Diana Ross, who attended the concert with her sister, Babe Rogers, who also lives in The Villages.
“These songs impacted our lives,” Ross said. “’They bring back a lot of memories.”
Rogers agreed.
“It’s funny, but you can relate so much of what happens in your life to music,” she said. “Especially the music you listened to when you were young. I can hear a song and tell you where I was at, and what I was doing. It’s that way with Gary Puckett songs like ‘Young Girl’ and ‘Woman Woman.’”
Times may be different, but the impact of music is the same.
“This music,” Ross said, “is what we were and what we are.”
