Inside Tracks #35: Kerry Chater and Gary "Mutha" Withem--Two Members of Gary Puckett & The Union Gap
What happens to members of a hot, hit-making 1960s American pop group? We can't presume to know, but we CAN peek a bit into the lives of two former Union Gap-pers, Kerry and Gary!
From Bowling Alley to 4 Straight Gold Records
“Formed in 1967, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap came out of the state of Washington and took their name from the nearby city of Union Gap”: In 2016, The Houston Press gave a succinct run-down on the band’s beginnings.
Our plan, here, is to follow and highlight two of the Union Gap’s members, and a bit of what they did after their group’s many 1960s hits.
The Press continues: “In addition to Puckett on vocals and guitar, the group also included Kerry Chater (bass), Dwight Bement (sax), Paul Wheatbread (drums) and Gary “Mutha” Withem (keyboards). Taking a nod from the revolutionary war-costumed Paul Revere and the Raiders, the group dressed in stage costumes reminiscent of Civil War-era Union soldiers.
”Puckett brought a demo to songwriter/record producer Jerry Fuller. The pair met just as Fuller was hanging the gold record on his office wall awarded to him for writing Ricky Nelson’s massive hit, “Travelin’ Man.” Fuller was impressed enough with the material and Puckett’s drive to catch one of their gigs at a bowling alley. Soon, the band was under contract to Columbia Records, with Fuller both producing and co-writing much of their material.”
Their first four singles all went gold (half-a-million units sold), and hit the Top 10 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100: “Woman, Woman” (#4), “Young Girl” and “Lady Willpower” (both #2), and “Over You” (#7).
According to Deadline.com, “The group’s fifth single, “Don’t Give in to Him” peaked at #15, but its follow-up, “This Girl Is a Woman Now” hit #9. All told, the group amassed five top 10 singles in less than two years from 1967-’69. The late Kerry Chater wrote several of the band’s songs but none of its singles.”
The band found little success overseas, but a rerelease of “Young Girl” hit the UK Top 10 in 1974.
Kerry Chater’s Solo Turn: “A Nice Little Yacht Rock Treasure”
Chater spent the years between 1970 (when he and Withem left the Union Gap) and the mid-’70s studying musical theater with Lehman Engel, an American composer and conductor in the Broadway theatre, TV, and film. Chater then released two solo albums on Warner Bros. Records: Part Time Love (1977) and, following immediately with Love on a Shoestring (1978); neither charted.
Part Time Love (1977) was a perfectly serviceable pop record with familiar session players, many of whom duplicated their roles on next year’s Love on a Shoestring. I had both albums at the time.
Allmusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine (in quoting longtime rock scribe, Gene Sculatti): “Kerry Chater always wanted to be a writer -- nothing more, nothing less. His songs are what landed him a deal with Warner Bros., and they’re the foundation of his long career as a songwriter in Nashville, and the best that can be said of his 1977 debut is that it’s very much a writer’s record: a collection of songs designed to be big hits.
“That they weren’t big hits in 1977 is neither the fault of co-producer/arranger Michael Omartian (who arranged FR&B exclusive contributor, Stephen Michael Schwartz’s debut album 3 years earlier), who gives this record a lovely Los Angeles studio sheen that is partially indebted to Boz Scaggs [and his smooth as Silk Degrees album the year before; in fact, soon-to-be Toto players, drummer Jeff Porcaro and bassist David Hungate, are as all over Part Time Love as they were the Scaggs album!] and partially indebted to England Dan & John Ford Coley [purveyors of soft rock with harmonies], nor is it the fault of Chater the writer, who does pen a bunch of sunny, appealing songs in a couple of different idioms. Every one of these is nicely crafted SoCal soft rock, and Chater the singer gives them a friendly spin that is just a shade nondescript.”
And, therein lay the problem for Chater, ultimately, when it came time for Warners to pitch songs to radio.
Co-produced by veteran pop mainstay, Steve Barri, Kerry and the title track (with its “giddiness of the bouncing soul beat,” says Sculatti), written by co-producer (and arranger), Michael Omartian and his wife, Stormie:
As for the next year’s Love on a Shoestring, we go back to Allmusic’s Erlewine: “The singer/songwriter reteamed with producer Barri and arranger, Omartian for another batch of sunny Southern Californian soft rock, a record that sometimes lingers in soulful Boz territory, but usually prefers to head somewhere a little bit smoother and hazier -- a place that’s closer to the middle of the road.
“He also occasionally suggests his Nashville future, particularly on the ballads, such as ‘Once Is Enough’ and the title track, which Captain & Tennille took to the lower reaches of the pop charts in 1980:
“Like its predecessor, Love on a Shoestring often feels a bit like a highly polished demo record, suggesting the range of Chater’s writing along with his commercial acumen, but it never quite develops a distinctive personality.”
Chater was married to Lynn Gillespie-Chater, songwriter and co-author of their novel series Kill Point. His mother was best selling Regency romance author Elizabeth Chater. Son Kerry Chater, Jr. is a guitarist, and son Christopher John Chater is a science fiction author.
Kerry died at his home in Nashville at age 76 on February 4, 2022.
Forward Into the 21st Century
January, 2004: “At age 48, I changed careers. After bouncing around several tech startups (and failures) during the 2000-2001 ‘Dot Bomb’ era, I decided I wanted to become an English teacher.”
Those are the words of fellow Substack writer,
(pictured below), author of Quoth the Maven. He’s got the low-down on the wayward keyboardist for The Union Gap!
Jim continued: So I took an accelerated curriculum through National University’s Education program to earn my Master’s Degree and teaching credential. The final requirement was to work for a semester as a student teacher.
In January 2004, National University placed me at Eastlake High School in Chula Vista, CA, seven miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border (and a San Diego suburb).
There I met my “Master Teacher,” Gary Withem. Gary was a large, friendly fellow, about ten years my senior with glasses and a shock of blonde hair. I’m sure this was a bit of a surprise – Gary was accustomed to mentoring 20-something future teachers, not a middle-aged father of three teenagers!
I was to teach his Health class. I noticed that Gary was also Eastlake’s Music Director. An odd combination for teachers, I thought. One day I asked him about how he became the head of the Music Department. He explained:
“Do you like rock and roll?” he asked. I think he knew the answer. I was a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Classic Rock was (and still is) my life’s soundtrack.
“Do you remember the pop group Gary Puckett and the Union Gap?”
Of course, I said. I recalled they dressed in Civil War (Union) uniforms and were chart-toppers in the late ‘60s. I rattled off a list of their hits: “Young Girl,” “Woman Woman,” “Lady Willpower.” I commented I thought frontman, Gary Puckett, had a beautiful voice.
“I was their keyboardist,” he said, smiling.
My jaw dropped. This was Gary “Mutha” Withem (pictured above, quite recently), a member of one of the most famous pop bands of the 1960s! My Master Teacher had five Gold Records hanging in his living room!
Jim offers a few info tidbits about Gary and the Gap:
“Woman, Woman” was the group’s first hit, released Nov. 1967 (on the group’s debut album of the same name), although Withem admitted he didn’t play on the record. Producer Jerry Fuller, who had signed Puckett and the Union Gap to Columbia Records, employed the famous “Wrecking Crew” to record the track.
“Young Girl,” from their second album, Young Girl, was #1 in the UK, and #2 on the U.S. Billboard charts the week of April 13, 1968. “Lady Willpower,” “Over You” and “This Girl is a Woman Now” were also Top 10 hits.
Jim takes us backstage for some rare peeks:
Witham (shown above) told great stories, and I couldn’t get enough! He’d often sit in with another San Diego band, Iron Butterfly, one of America’s “forefather” metal bands, along with Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge.
In the 1960s, bands and players from the same geographic areas often would co-mingle…practicing, rehearsing and sometimes performing together. Witham jammed with Iron Butterfly, and briefly sat in for organist Doug Ingle at Butterfly gigs when Ingle broke a finger in a fall. Ingle, then, would perform vocals only.
Withem also was recruited to fill in on keyboards for the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson for West Coast gigs in 1968 during Wilson’s periodic bouts with depression. It was through the Beach Boys that he met and played with Glen Campbell, Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye and other members of the Wrecking Crew.
He also became friends with Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, but shied away when he noticed that Wilson was hanging out with some weird friends – Charles Manson and his family.
The Union Gap headlined at a White House reception for Prince Charles and Princess Anne in 1968, and on May 12, 1968, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing “Young Girl” and “Lady Willpower” (Withem on organ, far left; Chater on bass, second from right):
Gary eventually tired of the rock and roll lifestyle, briefly wrote music for A&M Records in Los Angeles before retiring and becoming a teacher.
We’re both fully retired now and are still friends.
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Many thanks, Brad, for the opportunity to share my story about Gary (Mutha) Withem. Imagine, a (now retired) high school teacher with five gold records hanging in his living room!
Love this! I know you told me you were collaborating with Jim, but somehow I forgot and was pleasantly surprised! How cool that his teacher trainer was such a rock star! I would bet that it isn't and wasn't so rare that music teachers across the country were music stars of days gone by. Especially supporting musicians, that weren't the singer or main songwriter. Names don't come to mind, but I feel like I have met a couple teachers who had a previous life in touring and recording.
I liked the Chater single, "Part Time Love." Sure, it wasn't adding anything new, but it was fun and that was often enough to get radio play. Or so I thought. Maybe the timing was late? That song had an Elton John vibe to it. The 80s Elton.
Great job! And I'm trying to play catch up in my small moments of downtime to read your plethora of pop!