The Union Gap: "Woman, Woman"

January 13, 1968 (1 week)

It wouldn't be fully reflected at the top of the Canadian charts until the seventies but one of the coming musical trends for 1968 would be country rock, a rootsy blend of a pair of previously opposing genres. Bob Dylan seemed to see it coming with the release of John Wesley Harding at the very end of '67. It was a stark, stripped back affair that contrasted with the dynamism of previous official release Blonde on Blonde. (Even though the two were cut in the same Nashville studio with many of the same musicians) Meanwhile, Columbia label mates The Byrds had also begun dabbling in country, a style they would fully embrace by the midway point of the year. Spiraling into irrelevance, San Francisco's Beau Brummels even began working on a surprisingly strong country project of their own, which they titled Bradley's Barn.

Perhaps in no small part due to the involvement of The Byrds, the country rock movement is typically attributed as coming from individuals who had grown weary of psychedelic rock excess and were looking for a calmer headspace. (This narrative would only grow with The Grateful Dead's sudden shift from the acid-fueled jams of 1969's Aoxomoxoa to their sublime downhome duo of Workingman's Dead and American Beauty the following year) While The Union Gap were a relatively new act on the American pop scene, singer Gary Puckett had already made a failed attempt at stardom with The Outcasts. It is with their mid-sixties' singles "Run Away" and "I Can't Get Through to You" that you can hear early signs of psychedelic music. Jump ahead to the beginning of 1968 and his new act sounds like they were auditioning for the position of house band at the Grand Old Opry. (Quite what happened between the end of The Outcasts and this first Union Gap hit is up to the imagination, unless you happened to see them playing a show in the midst of their acid-to-country transition)

No, this is not your outlaw uncle's brand of country and western; rather, this is the old school Jim Reeves crooner variety. To be fair, Puckett and his crew couldn't have known that the tougher side of C&W would be the one favoured by rock's cooler kids. There had been a widespread instinct at the time to dial things back. The Beach Boys came off the Smile/Smiley Smile debacle with the pared down, R&B-influenced Wild Honey. Meanwhile, over in the UK, the simultaneous blues and folk booms were getting started while The Beatles were already scaling things back with their boogie single "Lady Madonna". (I maintain that the Fab Four should have released it and B side "The Inner Light along with John Lennon's recent compositions "Across the Universe" and "Hey Bulldog" as a brilliant E.P.; I would mention this elsewhere but for the fact that "Lady Madonna" didn't get to number one in Canada) Puckett had the right idea, only he went in the wrong direction.

Gifted a country composition, The Union Gap embraced fifties Nashville on "Woman, Woman". Considering Puckett's chewy baritone, they were probably right to go with mainstream country but it doesn't really ring true with these newfound back to roots values. If anything, it makes them sound more out of time than either the back to basics types or the acid rock holdovers. It isn't the worst attempt at countrifying the pop charts during this period (that happens to be the very next RPM number one) but there's little to say about it as well. How did it do so well? I think it's down to a combination of Puckett's dreamboat smile and crusty old dads hearing it, nodding with approval and going out to buy it for their kids. Or it's simply the public likes turgid old crap, the same old story. Either way, the single would kick start quite a year for the quintet as they joined an exclusive club alongside Elvis, The Beatles and a handful of others as acts for score at least three number ones on the Canadian hit parade within a calendar year.

I had never heard "Woman, Woman" before last week but I found myself listening to it an awful lot ever since. Considering my dismissiveness above, you might expect me to have played it a minimal amount and I would have done so but I couldn't get a grasp on it because it kept making me think of the 1993 dark comedy So I Married an Ax Murderer. Puckett's highfalutin sobs of "Woman, Wo-o-o-woman!" are so over the top that it's as if he's channeling his inner Mike Myers. Would "Woman, Woman" have sounded more at home as an amusingly twisted poem set to a basic jazz groove? It's impossible to say but yes, yes it would have.

Score: 4