1. Early years

2. British Invasion years
     Chad and Jill    Television work  

3. Late '60s and breakup

4. 1980s reunion

5. 2000s and beyond

6. Discography
    Singles  Albums  Compilations 

7. References

8. External links

Chad & Jeremy were an English musical duo. They began working together in 1962, and had their first hit song in the U.K. with "Yesterday's Gone". That song became a hit in the United States in the following year when they rode to fame as a part of the British Invasion. Unlike the rock music sounds of their peers, Chad & Jeremy presented a soft, folk-inflected style readily distinguished by their hushed and whispered vocals. The U.S. proved to be fertile soil for them, and they went on to have a string of successes there, including "Willow Weep for Me", "Before and After", and their biggest hit, "A Summer Song". Nonetheless, after some commercial failures and divergent ambitions between the two partners, Chad & Jeremy disbanded in 1968.

Chad Stuart continued to work in various capacities in the music industry while Jeremy Clyde devoted his energies to acting on film and stage. In the early 1980s, however, they rejoined one another for a new album and concert performances including a multi-band British Invasion nostalgia tour. Afterwards, another long period of separation ensued but in the early 2000s Chad & Jeremy began performing again and developed a semi-regular schedule of touring for many years. Stuart retired in 2018, and Clyde continues to tour and record as a solo artist.

Early years

Chad Stuart was born David Stuart Chadwick on 10 December 1941 in Windermere, Cumbria, and Jeremy Clyde was born Michael Thomas Jeremy Clyde on 22 March 1941 in Dorney, Buckinghamshire.^[1]

The two met while attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama.^[2] Chad taught Jeremy how to play the guitar and by 1962 they were performing together as a folk music duo.^[2] At the same time, they also formed a sideline project, a rock & roll band called the Jerks.^[2] After graduation from drama school, both musical groups were abandoned when Clyde left for Scotland for a short stint with the Dundee Repertory Theatre and Stuart took work in the music industry as a copyist and apprentice arranger.^[1] When Clyde returned, the two resumed their folk act.^[1]

British Invasion years

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.^[3][4] However, the British Invasion of 1964 gave them their big break.^[5] Chad & Jeremy's strings-backed sound held a greater appeal in the United States, where World Artists Records released "Yesterday's Gone" and saw it rise to No. 21 in the pop music charts.^[2]

As the duo recorded this song, 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".^[6] Jeremy often sings the melody of a song while Chad sings higher harmonies.^[7]

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 No. 1 on the Easy Listening chart) and on Columbia Records in 1965, "Before and After" reached the Top 20. In total Chad & Jeremy had 11 songs enter the Hot 100 between 1964 and 1966.^[8]

The British duo wound up being more popular in the US than at home; "Yesterday's Gone" was their only single to chart in the UK, but it was the first of eleven tunes that hit the American Hot 100. In February 1966, the British music magazine NME reported that the duo had applied for citizenship in the United States. The magazine commented that as American citizens, they would be eligible for military conscription, and that they had no wish to end up fighting in the Vietnam War; however, the practicalities of constantly renewing US work permits were problematic.^[9]

Chad and Jill

The duo went on hiatus for about a year beginning in mid-1965 when Clyde accepted an acting role in a London stage production of The Passion Flower Hotel.^[10] Stuart stayed in the U.S., performing and recording with his wife Jill.^[10] In April 1966, Columbia released a single by Chad and Jill, "The Cruel War" backed with "I Can't Talk to You".^[11] The single reached No. 110 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100.^[11] They performed the song on Hullabaloo in addition to performing Chad & Jeremy's "Funny How Love Can Be" on Shindig!

Television work

The duo also made several television guest appearances. They portrayed a fictional singing duo, "The Redcoats" (Freddy and Ernie), on the 10 February 1965 episode of the sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show that satirized Beatlemania. Two songs were featured in that episode: "I Don't Want No Other Baby But You" and "My, How the Time Goes By"."^[12] Just one week later, they appeared on The Patty Duke Show as "Nigel & Patrick", an unknown British singing duo in need of promotion.^[13] In an interview marking the 50th anniversary of the show's debut, Patty Duke still fondly recalled that particular episode: "I was obsessed with them," she said. "That was a big week for me."^[14]

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.^[15] In this two-part storyline, Catwoman's master plan includes "stealing" the voices of Chad & Jeremy.^[15] During "The Bat's Kow-Tow", the duo sang "Distant Shores" and "Teenage Failure".^[15]

Stuart did a little voice acting as one of the vultures in Walt Disney's 1967 film The Jungle Book.^[16] That same year, Clyde appeared on a Season 8 episode of My Three Sons.^[17]

Late '60s and breakup

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. They received critical acclaim, but they were both commercial failures.^[2]

In 1968, they collaborated again for the film soundtrack of Three in the Attic starring Christopher Jones and Yvette Mimieux.^[18] They recorded several new songs for the film and Stuart composed an instrumental backing score.^[18] The complete soundtrack was released in the U.S. on Sidewalk Records in 1969,^[19] featuring the duo's own version of "Paxton's Song (Smoke)", which was sung by Jones in the film.^[18] By the end of 1968, however, the working relationship of Stuart and Clyde had already dissolved.^[20][21]

In later years Stuart said there was regret for the parting of ways,^[22] but at the time the pair suffered heavily from "fatigue and burn-out".^[23] Cost overruns in the making of The Ark had soured relations with Columbia and left the two in crushing debt^[2] – they were constantly "pushed around by accountants and lawyers," Stuart recalled.^[23] Clyde announced that he was returning to his first love, the theater, and Columbia management reacted by suspending the duo's contract.^[2] Amid the acrimony, Stuart said, he and Clyde "very foolishly tore up" that contract and went their separate ways.^[23] "Our attitudes were, 'Who needs you?' Looking back though, we never should have done that. We should have kept it up. But we were only kids."^[23]

1980s reunion

After the split, Clyde returned to England and took up acting as a full-time vocation. He enjoyed great success and made several returns to New York in Broadway theater productions.^[23] In 1970, he began a well-received starring role at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in Conduct Unbecoming.^[24] Stuart remained in the U.S. with plans to continue in the music industry but in background roles such as arrangement and production. His first new job was music director for the Smothers Brothers' television show, and later he served as a staff producer for A&M Records.^[23] The pair met again in 1977 to record a few demos, but the collaboration was brief and no recordings were released.^[2]

In 1982, Chad & Jeremy reunited to record the album Chad Stuart & Jeremy Clyde, released the following year the MCA-distributed Rocshire Records label.^[2] Plans for a second album in 1984 were advancing when the label suddenly folded due to financial troubles.^[2] The pair found a different sort of fame when they starred in the West End production of Pump Boys and Dinettes from 1984–85.^[25]

Returning to the U.S. in 1986 for a British Invasion reunion tour, they played 33 cities in six weeks along with Freddie and the Dreamers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers and the Mindbenders.^[2] In his review of the show at New York City's Felt Forum, music journalist Jeff Tamarkin wrote: "The evening's unquestionable highlight was the set from Chad (Stuart) & Jeremy (Clyde), which featured such soft, folky hits as 'A Summer Song' and 'Yesterday's Gone', and even a few obscurities from their later career. The duo's harmonies were sweet, their young band tight, and their lack of tacky cover songs refreshing."^[26]

In 1987, they performed a two-week residency at Harrah's in Lake Tahoe, Nevada before again going their separate ways.^[2]

2000s and beyond

In 2002, Stuart was in his private studio, Electric Paintbox, preparing the release of a recording from the Harrah's engagement, when Clyde visited and the two made a new version of "Yesterday's Gone" as a bonus track for the album, In Concert (The Official Bootleg).^[2] 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. They performed at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in January 2009. In September 2010, Chad & Jeremy marked 50 years of performing together with a limited-edition CD entitled Fifty Years On.

After 15 years of semi-regular touring, Stuart retired to his home in Sun Valley, Idaho.^[27] Clyde now tours as a solo artist with a backing band, interlacing Chad & Jeremy songs with newer music from his own multi-album series, The Bottom Drawer Sessions.^[27] He also tours as part of a duo again, performing nostalgic concerts with one of his oldest friends, Peter Asher of Peter & Gordon.^[27]

Discography

Singles

Albums

• Yesterday's Gone (24 July 1964)
• Chad & Jeremy Sing for You (20 March 1965)
• Sing For You (April, 1965) - British, somewhat different version of their earlier first American release, "Yesterday's Gone."
• Before and After (1965)
• I Don't Want to Lose You Baby (1965)
• Second Album (February, 1966) - British, somewhat different version of their earlier second American release, "Sing For You."
• Distant Shores (1966)
• Of Cabbages and Kings (1967)
• The Ark (1968)
• 3 in the Attic (1968)
• Chad Stuart & Jeremy Clyde (1983)
• In Concert (The Official Bootleg) (2002)
• Ark-eology (2008)
• Fifty Years On (2010)

Compilations

• "The Best of Chad & Jeremy" (Capitol, 1966)
• "The Best of Chad & Jeremy" (K-Tel, 1990)
• "The Very Best of Chad & Jeremy" (Varese Sarabande, 2000)
• Complete Ember & World Artists (RPM, 2016)

References

External links

• Chad & Jeremy official website
• {{IMDb title|0671909|"The Patty Duke Show": "Patty Pits Wits, Two Brits Hits" (1965)}}
• {{IMDb title|0559839|"The Dick Van Dyke Show": "The Redcoats are Coming" (1965)}}

• Meath County Council election, 2009
• Meath County Council election, 2014
• Meath (Dáil Éireann constituency)
• Meathead (album)
• Meat Heart
• Meath East by-election, 2013
• Meath East (Dáil Éireann constituency)
• Meath Intermediate Football Championship
• Meath, Jonathan
• Meath Junior Football Championship
• Meath senior camogie team
• Meath senior hurling team
• Meath senior ladies' football team
• Meath West (Dáil Éireann constituency)
• Meath-Westmeath (Dáil constituency)
• Meath–Westmeath (Dáil Éireann constituency)
• Meat (Idles EP)
• Meat industry in Australia
• Meat Industry Research Institute of New Zealand
• Meat inspection
• M.E. Atkinson
• Meatless Mondays
• Meat Light
• Meat Lover
• Meatmaster cattle