Fifty Years On... is the new Chad & Jeremy CD released September 10th, 2010 to mark a very personal anniversary in the lives of these two British Invasion stars. It was 50 years ago this month that David Stuart Chadwick, a first year at the Central School of Speech and Drama first met Jeremy Clyde, already a 'veteran' of Central starting his second year. Immediate musical brotherhood followed, and three years later they were an "overnight" success. Five decades later (with a couple of time-outs in between), they're still going strong and celebrating it.

Chad and Jeremy, while always looking forward musically, are big on making sure that life's little milestones don't go unnoticed. So they've put together a CD marking these five decades with songs that have a personal meaning to them or that are unheard examples of certain eras of their long musical friendship. All of the songs are modern recordings, and most of these songs have not had previous release in any form.

The song that starts off the disc is one of the songs that has great personal meaning to them, as "Apache" was the Shadow's then-hit record 50 years ago, and Chad was given a chance to prove his musical ability to the older students on that first day in September of 1960 by playing a note-perfect rendition of this song. This one isn't quite the carbon copy that Chad no doubt turned in on that September day all those years ago. It is more Dire Straits than Shadows, while still paying loving tribute to a very special song in their personal timeline.

After that is "Take Out Some Insurance". "Insurance", like "You Need Feet" which concludes the disc, evokes the classic 1960s "fame" era of Chad & Jeremy, although in this case with a song never before commercially released. The story goes like this: when Chad & Jeremy first toured the US in 1964, they visited all manner of small radio stations promoting their record. To their horror, they discovered that US DJs, so mired in classic records by artists on such labels as Chess and Sun, were actually throwing out promotional discs for songs that were no longer getting airplay. Jeremy comes up with a brilliant plan - if they're throwing them out, why can't we take them home with us? For a couple of young British kids still trapped in the world of the BBC Light Programme - where only "Saturday Club" offered any real reliable outlet for youth music, this was like manna from heaven. All sorts of blues and rock records came home with C&J from that first tour, including "Take Out Some Insurance". They adored the song, play it in modern concert appearances, and Jeremy still has the original 45 rpm he liberated from some radio station in some small town all those years ago.

Dipping backwards chronologically in their life story is "Well All Right", a modern arrangement of the Buddy Holly classic which transforms us straight back to the stairwell at Central, where C&J perfected their hit sound in-between their studies, while also showing off Chad's skill at reinterpreting the 'classics'. "Don't Look Back" puts us smack in the middle of the 1980s, but with a touch that sounds more like a pre-British Invasion surf record than a song first performed live in 1987. As Chad puts it, this is how the Jerks would have played it "if they could've figured out how!".

Two songs on this new disc dwell not in the past, but very much in the present. "Lady Wants A Gentleman" is Jeremy Clyde and David Pierce's poignant ballad about not expecting too much of a man. "Doghouse Blues" is Chad's semi-autobiographical blues number about the inevitable consequences of a man failing to live up to expectations. These two very different songs are heard nearly every night in C&J's 21st Century concert performances.

Just as some of the material focuses on the past and the present, the Clyde-Pierce trio of "So Right Tonight", "What's In A Name?", and "Closed For Repairs" point towards the future for Chad & Jeremy. These songs have never before been heard in public, and are new for this CD. "Closed For Repairs" is an extremely well-written, catchy and clever commentary about the artificial world we live in, where "What's In A Name?" and "So Right Tonight" are very much directed towards romance. "What's In A Name?" is a gorgeous ballad touching on the ages old ground of what happens when two people find themselves drawn together by forces beyond their control. "So Right Tonight" is a fast and fun Latin-flavored song about being drawn together in a slightly different way.

No Chad & Jeremy performance would be complete without a bit of humor, and the disc ends with their trademark "funny" (as Chad calls the comedy songs), "You Need Feet". "Feet" both was the final song on their last 1960s LP and is the final song in their modern day live show. Yet it isn't the final track on the disc in spite of what the cover says. Keep that player running for an extra giggle.

That's the last fifty years, Chad & Jeremy style, in a way you've never heard them before.

The CD is available at Fall 2010 tour appearances as well as at the Online Shop at www.chadandjeremy.com for a short period of time. Don't miss out on your chance to join in the celebration a full Fifty Years On...

F. Jason Rhoden
September 2010.

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Copyright 2010  Frank Jason Rhoden.