Kerry Michael Chater is a Canadian musician and songwriter. He is best known as a member of Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, but he has been a successful Nashville songwriter for many years.
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Chater was born on August 7, 1945 in Vancouver, British Columbia. A bass player, in 1966 he joined a band called "The Outcasts" with his friend Gary Puckett and others; this eventually became The Union Gap,[1] which was signed by Columbia Records in 1967. Over the next two years the band had 4 songs in the top 10. Chater did much of the arranging for the live shows and co-wrote some of the album cuts and b-sides. Chater and Gary "Mutha" Withem, the original keyboardist, left the band in 1970 as its popularity was declining.
Chater spent the next five years studying musical theater with Lehman Engel. Chater released two solo albums in the late 1970s: Part Time Love (1977) and Love on a Shoestring (1978); neither charted.
1978 marked Chater's debut as a serious songwriter. With veteran songwriter Charlie Black, he wrote "I Know a Heartache When I See One", which reached #19 on the US and #10 on the US country charts in 1979 for Jennifer Warnes. Chater has also written hits with Glen Ballard and Rory Bourke (You Look So Good in Love), singer Renee Armand (What She Wants), and his wife, Lynn Gillespie Chater (I Meant to Do That, with Paul Brandt).
The song I.O.U., co-written with Austin Roberts, was a nominee for the 1984 Grammy Award for Best Country Song. Lee Greenwood's performance of the song won him the Grammy for Best Performance by a Male Artist.