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.
