Chad & Jeremy

Chad and Jeremy are an English singing folk rock duo originating in the 1960s, comprising Chad Stuart (born David Stuart Chadwick, 10 December 1941, Windermere, Cumbria) and Jeremy Clyde (born Michael Thomas Jeremy Clyde, 22 March 1941, Dorney, Buckinghamshire). Jeremy often sings the melody of a song while Chad sings higher harmonies.^[1] They were part of the British Invasion, a large influx of British rock and pop musicians to the American music scene.^[2]

Career

Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde met while attending the Central School of Speech and Drama. Chad taught Jeremy how to play the guitar. By 1962, they performed together as a folk duo and formed a band called The Jerks, which Chad described as "the world's screwiest rock and roll group."^[1][3]

The duo's first single, 1963's "Yesterday's Gone", for the Ember Records label, which was arranged by John Barry, was their only UK hit.^[4] However, Chad & Jeremy's strings-backed sound held a greater appeal in the United States, where World Artists Records released their mid-1960s strain of commercial folk music. As the duo recorded this, they developed their trademark style of singing: "whispering." "[John Barry] told us...we sounded like a locker room full of football players...in the end in desperation he said: 'Whisper it', so we kind of backed off a bit and so that sort of slightly sotto voce sound came about".^[5]

Their second single, and biggest American hit, "A Summer Song", hit No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 17–24 October 1964. Follow-ups included a cover version of "Willow Weep for Me" (which reached Number 1 on the Easy Listening chart) and on Columbia Records in 1965, "Before and After" reached the Top 20. In total Chad & Jeremy had seven US Top 40 hits between 1964 and 1966.

In February 1966, the British music magazine NME reported that the duo had applied for U.S. citizenship. The magazine commented that as U.S. citizens, they would be eligible for military conscription, and that they had no wish to end up defending their adopted country in the Vietnam War. However, the practicalities of constantly renewing U.S. work permits were problematical.^[6]

The duo performs for a television special at Marineland, 1966

In the fall of 1967, they released the psychedelic album Of Cabbages and Kings (as "Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde") and a 1968 follow-up, The Ark.

The duo also made several television guest appearances. They portrayed a fictional singing duo, "The Redcoats" (Fred and Ernie), on the 10 February 1965 episode of the sitcom Dick Van Dyke Show that satirized Beatlemania. Two songs were featured in that episode: "No Other Baby" and "My, How the Time Goes By". The following week they appeared on The Patty Duke Show as an unknown British singing duo, "Nigel & Patrick", performing "A Summer Song", "The Truth Often Hurts the Heart" and "Yesterday's Gone". They also appeared as itinerant actors in "That's Noway, Thataway", a January 1966 episode of the comedic western Laredo, which was intended as a pilot for their own spin-off series.

The duo appeared as themselves in the December 1966 episodes "The Cat's Meow" and "The Bat's Kow Tow" of the television series Batman, in which the guest villain was Julie Newmar as Catwoman. In "The Cat's Meow", Catwoman attempts to "steal" the voices of Chad and Jeremy.^[7] During the latter episode, they sang "Distant Shores" and "Teenage Failure".

Clyde appeared in 1966 as a bachelor contestant on The Dating Game, where he won. Stuart voiced Flaps the vulture in Disney's 1967 film The Jungle Book. That same year, Clyde appeared on an episode of My Three Sons.

In 1968, they composed and recorded music for the film soundtrack of Three in the Attic. The music soundtrack was released in the U.S. on Sidewalk Records.

In 1983, Chad & Jeremy reunited to record the album Chad Stuart & Jeremy Clyde for the MCA-distributed Rocshire Records label. Plans for a second reunion album in 1984 were well-advanced when the label folded.^[8] The duo starred in the West End production of Pump Boys and Dinettes from 1984–85, before returning to the U.S. in 1986 for a nostalgia tour with other British Invasion artists. In 1987, they performed in short residencies at both Harrah's Casino in Lake Tahoe, and the Reno Hilton before again breaking up.

In 2003, PBS reunited Chad & Jeremy in the 60s Pop-Rock Reunion special, which also prompted a tour the next year. In 2008, the group released Ark-eology, an album featuring remakes of material they recorded in the 1960s. In September 2010, Chad & Jeremy marked 50 years of performing together with a limited-edition CD entitled Fifty Years On.

They performed at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in January 2009.

Chad and Jill

In 1965, while Clyde was working on another project, Stuart recorded a cover of Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Cruel War" with his wife, Jill Stuart (backed with "I Can't Talk to You").^[9] They performed the song on Hullabaloo^[10] in addition to performing Chad & Jeremy's "Funny How Love Can Be"^[11] on Shindig!^[12]

Discography

Singles

Albums

• Yesterday's Gone (1964)
• Sing for You (1965)
• Before and After (1965)
• I Don't Want to Lose You Baby (1965)
• Distant Shores (1966)
• Of Cabbages and Kings (1967)
• The Ark (1968)
• Three in the Attic (1969)
• Chad Stuart & Jeremy Clyde (1983)
• Ark-eology (2008)
• Fifty Years On (2010)

References

External links

• Chad & Jeremy official website
• "The Patty Duke Show": "Patty Pits Wits, Two Brits Hits" (1965) at the Internet Movie Database
• "The Dick Van Dyke Show": "The Redcoats are Coming" (1965) at the Internet Movie Database