MOTIF Profile of CHAD & JEREMY

Many of rock’s greatest musical partnerships were a case study in contrasts. On one hand, you had the amiable, optimistic Paul McCartney versus the acerbic, sharp-witted John Lennon. The Stones have the trend-conscious Mick Jagger alongside the scruffy rock purist Keith Richards. And we won’t even get into The Captain & Tennille! And so it was, and continues to be for the often-overlooked but nevertheless notable British Invasion act Chad & Jeremy.

Since their inception almost forty-five years ago, the duo’s somewhat tenuous relationship consisted of the musician Chad Stuart and the actor Jeremy Clyde. Although those portrayals made be too simple to accurately describe the full picture of their dynamics, Jeremy’s continual pull towards all things thespian would be a constant source of strain throughout their career, inevitably leading to a breakup in 1970. Even their backgrounds demonstrate the dichotomy that exists between the two. Chad, born David Stuart Chadwick, was the product of a working class family. On the flip side, Michael Thomas “Jeremy” Clyde, whose mother is the daughter of the Duke of Wellington, was the product of private schools and privilege. In fact, in my recent phone interview with Chad, he described his early impressions of Jeremy as a “man of the world, with his tailored jeans, and his leather WWII flying jacket, and his urbane charm – This guy’s got the flash and the class, and I’ve got the guitar playing.”

In the early 1960’s Chad & Jeremy were truly harmonious with a promising career within reach. Their common love for rock & roll and the burgeoning folk scene drew the pair together, first as members of a band called The Jerks, and soon after as the hit making duo. In short order, Jeremy’s connections visa vie his family, would have the pair rubbing shoulders with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, and most importantly The Beatles. Fatefully, those same V.I.P. connections landed Chad & Jeremy a recording contract with Ember Records, under the auspices of producer John Barry.

In short order, the duo would score their signature hit “Yesterday’s Gone”, which hit the UK charts “staggering to 45 with an anchor”, as Chad is often to say. In a somewhat quaint, somewhat sad sign of those times, although Chad Stuart wrote the song, his manager coerced him into relinquishing 15% of the royalties to her because he had written it on her piano! But bad business decisions is par for the course when you’re young and starry eyed, and Chad & Jeremy fell victim to that reality.

Soon after the Beatles hit the American shores by storm, being a British musician wasn’t simply in vogue, it was obligatory. As the groundswell of UK acts found their way into the US market, so did Chad & Jeremy. They scored an international smash hit “Summer Song”, a classic folk-flavored ballad that seems to still endure to this day. Chad explains, “That’s the song that won’t go away… five times on the Superbowl, in a TV commercial, and the movies “Rushmore” and “The Princess Diaries”... it’s the little song that could!”

Having conquered the charts, the next logical medium to try was acting, and specifically for Chad & Jeremy television. Their background in drama deemed them perfect candidates for the venture, and with a record number of teenage viewers glutting the market, it was the perfect promotional vehicle to pump up record sales. The duo appeared on less-than-memorable episodes of The Patty Duke Show and Batman (remember, Catwoman stole their voices???) But it was The Dick Van Dyke show’s classic episode titled “The Red Coats are Coming” (starring the duo as UK singing sensations ‘The Red Coats’) that still holds up today. Chad recounts, “There’s no question in my mind that the Dick Van Dyke was the first and the best. It had the best producers, it had the best writers, it had the best stars, it had the best everything”

As the sixties unfolded, Chad & Jeremy had many misadventures in a business that can be very cruel to artists without the necessary knowledge. They would have dealings with iconic moguls like famed Beatles/Stones manager Allen Klein, who did little but pad his wallet with their earnings. They would record for Who, Small Faces record producer Shel Talmy, and even had a then-unknown session guitarist Jimmy Page on the recordings. They would meet and record a song by soon-too-be songwriting legend Paul Simon, but failed to release their version of “Homeward Bound” as a single (indeed recorded before Simon & Garfunkel’s own).

And there were personal issues, most notable Jeremy’s place in the outfit. Throughout, he appeared to be straddling two careers, always leaving the music to pursue acting jobs. This inevitably ran countercourse to the emerging counterculture attitude that was predominant in sixties rock & roll. Chad explains “We had one foot in the old establishment way – we didn’t really belong in either school, we felt like frauds in a way.” And matters were only made worse when an English music paper printed a photo of Jeremy from when he was 12 at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, “(Jeremy) all dressed up in his little velvet suit looking like a pouncie little aristocrat, which he was at the time… once the British pop fans see that, it’s all over, isn’t it?”

Although they would record two more adventurous albums, “Of Cabbages and Kings” and “The Ark”, efforts which many consider to be some of the earliest examples of psychedelic music, as the sixties ended the duo split. Jeremy went off to properly pursue acting, and Chad predictably stayed in music, including a stint as musical director of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

After a brief rebirth in the early eighties, which included a hit single and video “Bite the Bullet” (famously featuring Lauren Hutton), the duo would drift in and out of eachother’s professional lives. It seems that today, there finally is an understanding between the two that allows them to embrace their past, both good times and missteps. Still touring, Chad & Jeremy fill their shows with stories and anecdotes, that only two stalwarts dug into the trenches like them could pull off with integrity and history intact.