Arts & Entertainment
Yesterday's Not Gone
Chad And Jeremy Come To Fairfield; Chad Stuart Tells Their Tale
It's not every day you get to speak to a bonafide member of the British Invasion. And if it's someone as warm, witty and occasionally caustic as Chad Stuart, it's certifiably a gas.
Kids, if you need that term translated, ask your folks.
While you're doing that, a brief history lesson.
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Back in 1964, in the wake of Big Beat groups, like The Beatles, Kinks and The Rolling Stones, other equally-intriguing acts hit our shores, betraying as much a folk influence as a rock one. Mostly, they were duos. One was Peter And Gordon. The twosome who proceeded them, in the charts and our hearts, was Chad And Jeremy. Having as much allegiance to The Everly Brothers and The Kingston Trio as Bo Diddley, Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde brought the sound of close-harmony singing and intricate fingerpicking to a Top Forty, often bursting with Beatle wannabes.
Their iconic tune, "A Summer Song," with its bittersweet strings and haunting sense of longing, has never really been off the radio, or far from a movie soundtrack (the brilliant "Rushmore" is a fine recent example.) You can hear this classic 1964 tune and others, which blend the duo's flawless harmonies and solid guitar work, when they play the Fairfield Theatre Company on Friday. And again, at Infinity Hall in Norfolk, on the 16th.
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"You might think that all of us, Ray Davies and McCartney and everyone were all hanging out together and writing," said the urbane Stuart recently. "But we were really all sort of competing, trying to get a record deal. Jeremy and I met at drama school in 1960. We looked at each other wondering, 'Who's that other idiot with the guitar?' Not long after, we were playing at a place called Tina's, in London, just barely surviving. Then, good luck and bad luck hit at about the same time."
Stuart goes on to tell a painfully familiar tale. The duo's manager got the rights to "A Summer Song," "Yesterday's Gone" and several other chart hits. Though Stuart gets writer's royalties for 'Summer,' he and his longtime musical partner have never seen a dime from the considerable airplay their biggest hits have received.
"We have been in litigation over this for years," said this typically-stoic Englishman, who now makes his home in Sun Valley, Utah. "We always think there's going to be a breakthrough, and we'll get the rights back, but who knows? Still, things have been going quite well for us for some time."
So well, in fact, that the folk rockers are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their partnership and friendship this year. The Golden Anniversary is commemorated by Chad And Jeremy's first record in eons, the CD, "Fifty Years On," which will be available starting on Friday.
And what a half century it has been. In their heyday, this British duo not only did well on the charts (seven Top Forty hits from '64 to '66), but were such gifted actors, and yes, so adorably English when it wasn't cool to be anything else, that they guest-starred on three classic American sitcoms: "Batman," "The Patty Duke Show" and perhaps, most memorably, "The Dick Van Dyke Show."
"Jeremy came up with that line, 'You know what we call this in England, don't you? A chair' (for an actual chair, stumping the genial Mr. Van Dyke). I try to get him to do it live, sometimes. He always need help with the set-up!"
The anecdotes, however much Stuart may joke about them, depict the grooviest possible ride, at the height of the hippest decade ever. Whether guesting on "Batman" ("The Batmobile was kind of gross; it was an old Trans Am they never kept cleaned or tuned"), hosting the premiere rock show of the day, "Hullabaloo," or being on tour with The Dave Clark Five, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, it sounds like the best 60s' rock and roll dream imaginable.
But Chad And Jeremy are not, insists Stuart, just about nostalgia.
"We try to keep it honest and stripped-down, too, so it doesn't seem like some bad TV production," Stuart said. "We tried doing our show with a stand-up bass and a percussionist, but it seemed silly. We do the old songs and some new ones, but we try to present the thing with integrity. Not just 'Two Fools On Stools.' Certainly, there's humor. I'm a great fan of Craig Ferguson's and I'm trying to get some of that dry, humorous thing he does, into our shows."
Even after 50 years in the music biz, Stuart feels optimistic about the future for this cherished duo.
"We're hopeful that one of these days, the lawsuit will be settled and we'll start getting paid for airplay. But the main thing is our live shows. Parents bring their kids and everybody seems to be really into it. After all the years of thinking, 'We're artists,' you realize that what you're doing onstage is entertainment. And should be. You make people laugh, cry and sing along. If you can do that for people, it's an amazing accomplishment, really."
