Mark Pucci, the veteran music publicist and blues advocate who worked for Capricorn Records and had his own P.R. firms in a career that spanned more than 50 years, has died. He was 79.
Pucci died on Oct. 8 in Cumming, Georgia, after a brief illness and complications from a stroke, Karin Johnson, a spokesperson for his company, Mark Pucci Media, told The Hollywood Reporter.
During two tenures at Capricorn, where he served as publicity director from 1974-79 and then vp publicity and G.M. in Nashville from 1991-95, Pucci directed P.R. campaigns for the likes of The Allman Brothers Band, The Marshall Tucker Band, Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elvin Bishop, Delbert McClinton, Wet Willie, Sea Level, Dixie Dregs, Widespread Panic, Kenny Chesney, 311 and Cake.
He also worked on Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign, handling PR and promotion of benefit concerts that helped raise funds and boost the candidate’s national profile.
He opened Atlanta-based Mark Pucci Associates in 1979, then launched Mark Pucci Media, also out of Atlanta, in 1996. His clients at those firms included Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, John Mayall, Taj Mahal, Gordon Lightfoot, Derek Trucks, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Charlie Musselwhite, Dave Alvin, Jimmie Vaughan, Eric Johnson, Maria Muldaur, Al Kooper, The Nighthawks and Savoy Brown.
“I’m an old school guy,” he said in a 2019 interview. “We’re a small company that concentrates on a limited number of artists, and we try to go over and above what we’re contracted to do.”
In 2008, he received the prestigious Keeping the Blues Alive Award from the Blues Foundation in Memphis in recognition of his career achievements and contributions to the blues community.
A native of New Jersey, Pucci graduated from the University of Memphis in 1971, served as music editor of the monthly entertainment magazine River City Review and wrote about Elvis Presley and the Memphis Blues Festival for Rolling Stone and other publications before joining Capricorn in 1974 in Macon, Georgia.
Survivors include his sister-in-law, Gertrude; his nieces, Diane and Tina; and his nephew, Peter. He was predeceased by his wife, Patricia, and his siblings, Joseph, James, Dolores and Carol. Donations in his memory can be made to the LifeLine Animal Project.