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Chad And Jeremy Liner Notes

It can be very interesting to read liner notes to old records, giving you a feel for where the artists career was at that point, the record label's attitude, and sometimes (as in the case with Chad and Jeremy) what the artist thinks about the record. On this page are the liner notes to all of Chad and Jeremy's 1960's LPs.

 

YESTERDAY'S GONE

The music industry as well as the public are always looking for a fresh new talent. We here at WORLD ARTISTS RECORDS are proud to present two of the most refreshing personalities from across the sea.

Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde made their mark with their very first release, entitled, "Yesterday's Gone," introducing "The Oxford Sound" to the American public. During their only trip to date to the United States, both Chad & Jeremy were overwhelmed by the reception they recieved. They made appearances on "The Hollywood Palace," "The Steve Allen Show," and "The Mike Douglas Show," (for which they were held over).

Here are some pertinent facts on Chad & Jeremy:

Chad was born 21 years ago in Windermere (outside of London). He was educated at the Durham School, followed by brief excursions at the Art School and The Sorbonne in Paris. To achieve his musical ambitions he joined a music publishing house as a copyist and arranger.

Jeremy was born 22 years ago at Buckinghamshire. He was educated at ETON followed by a formal education at Grenoble in France. He also attended a school for Speech & Drama, where there he played in a "rock-n-roll" group in his spare time for two years. Jeremy's modesty most often hides the fact that he is the grandson of the Duke of Wellington.

"The boys" met about a year ago at a party, started discussing music, and found that their views were compatible. Henceforth, the birth of CHAD AND JEREMY!

A note from Dean Martin to Chad & Jeremy

"I had an excellent chance to get to know Chad and Jeremy, both personally and professionally while they stayed here in my home during their first visit to the United States.

They are great guys and fine musicians, I have no doubts that they will go a long, long way and if I had the fare I'd go with them.

P>S> I don't know which one of you took my tennis shoes --- but please send them back!!!" - Dean Martin

In a recent letter from Jeremy about their first album,

"...About half the songs in this album are standard tunes, that both Chad and I have always wanted to record. The rest of the songs are new ones. I believe we have captured 'The Oxford Sound,' as you Americans call it. In the song, 'Only For The Young,' Chad has a guitar solo, neither of us sing on this particular cut, but we liked it so much we had to include it. We hope all our fans like our first album, and we'll be back in the United States soon to see them all. Sincerely yours, (signed) Jeremy Clyde.

P.S. Dean, we didn't take your tennis shoes!"

 

SING FOR YOU

Ever since Jeremy and I started singing in Tina's, a subterranean coffee house in London's west end, our intention has been purely and simply to sing songs; any songs, as long as we like them and our audience likes them. We hope that we don't fall to easily into any one musical category, and we also hope that this album proves it to a certain extent.

Speaking as one who is continually suffering from being called "Clyde," I must protest at this point that my name is Chad, and that I'm the one who wears glasses. Another way of telling us apart is that Jeremy usually sings the melody in our songs while I sing the higher harmonies. Professionally we differ in that I am an arranger-musician by trade, whereas Jeremy is an actor. He cheerfully admits to being schizophrenic about his career and sees no reason why he shouldn't combine the legitimate theatre and the "hot hundred".

There has been a vile rumour circulating that we met at a party, in fact it even crept onto the sleeve note of our first album "Yesterday's Gone." Lies Lies Lies! For the stunning truth, reader, I met Jeremy Clyde at drama school in London. (Sir Laurence Olivier went there too, but not at the same time!) I arrived there as an ex-Art student hungry for fame and fortune, to find a mop-headed boy who looked like Bob Dylan, wearing a moth-eaten leather flying jacket and dragging round a battered Spanish guitar. I was in possession of several technical secrets regarding this instrument (mainly copied from Buddy Holly), and this immediately won his respect, so we struck up a musical friendship. This soon blossomed into the worlds screwiest rock and roll group (called "The Jerks") with another bearded actor playing bass. This was eventually disbanded because we didn't see any future in scruffy rock and roll groups; - we have lived to regret this decision.

One thing I have not lived to regret was meeting a girl called Jill, who was also a student at the college. Her life is now divided equally between modelling, running our fan club, and being married to me!

Jeremy, having completed his course, departed for the professional theatre and I also left (prematurely) to try my luck in the recording business. One of my favorite occupations when out of work (which was frequently) was to sit in the front row of the stalls laughing helplessly when Jeremy paced the stage in wrinkled black tights. At first I worked as a salesman at a department store, but eventually managed to keep body and soul together as a pianist or guitarist with various groups. Finally I landed a job as junior arranger cum copyist with a music publisher. I wrote and arranged "Yesterday's Gone" during this period, but couldn't get anyone to record it. Fortunately Jeremy returned to London after a long spell at a theatre in Scotland, looking for work. We got a job singing in Tina's for $15 a week and free meals and that's where it all began.

In this album you will find two songs typical of the kind we used to sing in Tina's, "Donna" and "4 Strong Winds." "Donna" is an Israeli folk song, and the title roughly translated means "Oh Lord." These songs are romantic and sad, and this answers another question we are often asked: What sort of songs do we sing? In a lot of our songs and arrangements we have tried to keep the simplicity and romantic appeal that belonged to the folk songs we first sang in our coffee house, but please don't call us "folksy" because we aren't and anyway we hate the word. As there is no more space available I cannot discus the other songs on this record. Anyway, far better you just listen to them. - Chad Stuart

 

BEFORE AND AFTER

(original notes)

The combination of Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde has produced the new, fresh, exciting sound that has skyrocketed them to fame as one of today's most successful singing duos.

Chad Stuart was born in Windermere, England. After attending Durham Cathedral School, he attended the Sorbonne in Paris, and then art school in England. With the completion of his formal education, Chad enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where he met Jeremy. Chad has worked as a salesman in a department store, as clerk in a record shop and as junior arranger with a music publishing firm. While with the publishers, he wrote one of the team's first hits, "Yesterday's Gone." It wasn't until he mat Jeremy again and they started singing professionally in a coffeehouse, that they were heard by a recording executive who liked their style and had them record Chad's song. In addition to singing, he plays piano, organ, lute, mandolin, harmonica, violin, trumpet and flute.

Jeremy Clyde was born in Buckinghamshire, England. He received his elementary education at Ludgrove Preperatory School and Eton, continuing at the University of Grenoble in France. After graduating from Grenoble he, too, enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Upon leaving Central, Jeremy went to work as an actor, appearing in productions of "Hamlet," "The Miser," "A Man For All Seasons" and "Roots" in the Regents Park and Dundee Theatres.

 

BEFORE AND AFTER

(Chad's notes)

This is our first album for Columbia Records. We recorded it in New York City, which might seem strange for a supposedly English sound! This is also the first time we have worked with album producer Lor Crane, who more or less presides over what we do. He carries the ball if anything goes wrong, so I don't really envy him! It's largely due to Lor's patience and ingenuity that we managed to complete this album on time, because we had been touring all over America almost non-stop for several months, and our schedule left absolutely no time for the extensive preparation we like to put into making an album.

However, the indefatigible Mr. Crane chased us around the country with a portable tape recorder, capturing all our thoughts and ideas so that Frank Hunter could write them down later in New York. Normally, I like to sit at my desk in London, work things out on the piano and arrange our stuff properly, but, unfortunately, desks and pianos don't fit too easily into buses or planes, so we had to make do with hasty discussions and a few scribbled notes on slightly crumpled manuscript paper.

Anyway, we've done it, and here it is, folks, all shining and new, waiting for your verdict, which I hope will be favorable.

I'd just like to mention that Jeremy and I wrote or co-wrote six songs on this album, the product of idle momemts in hotels and dressing rooms while on tour. Little Does She Know is our favourite, and we'd like it to be a single some day (Jill, my wife, is handclapping on this one). Why Should I Care is mostly by Jeremy; this is his style, a very enthusiastic sort of sound. I wrote Say It Isn't True with Russell Alquist, who has written several songs on our previous albums. This one was intended for Freddie and the Dreamers, and I believe it's on one of their albums also. Evil-Hearted Me is just a big laugh!

See you on the next album! - Chad Stuart

 

I DON'T WANT TO LOSE YOU BABY

I am writing these notes basking in Californian sunshine, sitting by the pool at our apartment. This is the life! Far removed from the rainy London of last May where we made this album. I really love London, but at this precise momoent I rather go for California, too!

We worked in comparative tranquility on this album, because we weren't touring or doing anything hectic as we were when the "Before and After" album took shape in New York, and I think this is an even better record as a result. I had just been in bed for two months with glandular fever (you Americans call it mononucleosis, or the Student's Disease - in my case a product of too much touring and too little sleep!) and doctor's orders were that I should take it easy, so everyone soft-pedaled things for a while. Even so, our album producer, Lor Crane, and I stayed up pretty late at night working on the arrangements! We used to stop work around two in the morning and then stagger over to the Pickwick Club, where we would carouse what was left of the night away with such infamous names as Jeremy Clyde, Gordon Waller, Phil Everly and various assorted showbizzy characters. I vaguely recollect Jill, my wife, trying to teach Lor to dance, but I don't think she made much headway. Jeremy was very wrapped up in the auditions for "Passion Flower Hotel," a stage musical in which, at the time of writing, he is now appearing in London, but he still managed to be at the sessions on time!

We really enjoyed ourselves on the sessions for this album - even more so than on any of the others, I think. We wanted to do a few things that each of us enjoys most; for instance, Jeremy gets a chance to play the blues singer on The Woman In You (he is solely responsible for the creation of this song, which he claims to be an original blues tune from the South - south Kensington, that is!) and I finally got around to recording Don't Think Twice (It's All Right), which people have been asking me to do for ages. What a fantastic song that is. Come to think of it, what fantastic songs they all are - Dylan's I mean, and that includes Mr. Tamborine Man which we just couldn't resist including. Should I is a Stuart-Clyde original which, by sheer coincidence, happens to be one of our favorite tracks!

We reached back into the past for a standard song and decided on I Have Dreamed - very romantic song, that. Hope you like it, girls! Two more new ones are Funny How Love Can Be (first made popular by the Ivy League Trio in London) and The Girl Who Sang The Blues.

Some of you may be curious to know what the future holds now for Chad and Jeremy, in view of all our individual activities. I'm glad to say we won't be working apart too often, because we have a lot of touring to do together in the future, our first television series is on the drawing board at the moment and; of course, we shall be recording together. We'll always find time to do that. With a bit of luck this album will be only the second of many coming to you from Chad and Jeremy by courtesy of Columbia Records. -Yours sincerely, Chad Stuart

 

THE BEST OF CHAD AND JEREMY

Chad and Jeremy record hits... nothing but hits... and many of the biggest hits. And here, all in one album, is a fantastic program of Chad and Jeremy's greatest hit sounds...in fact, it's THE BEST OF CHAD AND JEREMY.

The sound that quickly enveloped the world began in 1964 when music publishing aspirant Chad Stuart, and Jeremy Clyde, the theatrically intentioned great-great-grandson of the famed Duke of Wellington, sang a few quietly rhythmic ballads in a subterranean coffee house called Tina's. Well, 1964 was scarcely a time for ballads, what with four Liverpool madcaps named the Beatles shattering all of the sound and popularity barriers known to man. But Chad and Jeremy, by creating and perfecting their own unique ballad style, managed not only to survive, but to make recording history of their own. Top "top 40" stations across the nation (and indeed the world) enthusiastically aired their hits. The easiest "easy listening" stations (those not prone to indulge in fads, fancies or popular excesses) were equally anxious to play the well-tempered Chad and Jeremy sound. Result: both the teen and adult listening public flipped for the same sound...an event not overly common in the history of popular music. Hit singles soon gave rise to hit albums. Hit albums paved the way for record-breaking international tours. And continent hopping resulted in hit guest appearances on many of the worlds most prestigious stages and radio and T.V. shows.

But nowhere in the world did Chad and Jeremy meet with greater popularity and success than right here in the United States. From the day their first disc, Yesterday's Gone lit up the radio dial, Americans were captivated by C & J's harmonious blend of popular ballad and folk styles...with just the right amount of rhythmic drive for today's audiences. Yesterday's Gone soon climbed into the "top 10" (No. 5) as did five other chart-toppers which are proudly presented in this all-hit album extravaganza: A Summer Song (No. 1); Willow Weep For Me (No. 2); If I Loved You (No. 4); What Do You Want With Me? (No. 7); and From A Window (No. 9). And rounding out Chad and Jeremy's Capitol concert are several of their "top 40" contenders which further demonstrated their melodic scope and lyric sensitivity: My How The Time Goes By and If I Had A Heart, two ballads with pronounced beat, and the melancholy Too Soon My Love, as soulful serenade to a vanishing summer.

Chad (the one with the glasses who sings most of the harmony) and Jeremy (the lead singer without the specs) have come to be recognized not only as poular singers but also as important singers. For it is they who have given the world of popular music a sound that appeals to almost every taste. This fact is beautifully and completely substantiated in THE BEST OF CHAD & JEREMY.

 

MORE CHAD AND JEREMY

"Nice lads," said Ringo Starr. "Should do well in America." And they did.

Ringo was talking on British TV's "Juke Box Jury" about Chad and Jeremy and their new release "A Summer Song" which he voted a "miss" but which, also, as he suggested it might, did very well in America. And England too.

Chad was hiding behind a screen during Ringo's deliberations - visible to the viewers but not to the panel - grinning that wry British grin of his with his eyes half-a-smile ahead of his mouth and I remember that when he ambled out to face the panel and the audience, he and Ringo seemed to dig each other.

I also remember thinking that this was a nice thing to see in the bloody bullring of showbusiness.

This was all a long time ago - in 1964 when then was then and there were no conflicts; everyone in the British pop-scene was on the way up and no one was ever going to be on the way down. Not ever.

Well...for a few of them in those faraway days of pop-worship, when the whole young world was enclasped in the warm embrace of British artists, the outlook was indeed bright, but dangerously vague.

The following year saw many casualties in the bullet-strewn charts and names, once household property, have been casually cast aside into the middle-distance of memory where they can briefly be recalled in the context of "whatever happened to...?"

May God rest all their guitars and preserve the recollections of their fragile fame and the impermanent devotion of their screaming fans, for those were lovely, loving days.

But now is now; it is also Chad and Jeremy (and, of course, Ringo and his three enchanting colleagues). Their strong survival is remarkable in the framework of 1966 because it means they have successfully inched their elegant forms over the brittle bridge to a safe place, high and dry and full of sunshine and bread.

Chad and Jeremy now live in Hollywood, though they batter their way around the Union from time to time (on what is romantically described as "the road" but which actually is a gnashing, grinding tour of one-night stands) taking their music to the People. Who seem to enjoy it very much.

So do I. I enjoy Chad and Jeremy as companions, too. They have that special, total rapport which belongs only to people who were intended by nature or instinct to band together in duos or groups.

I think this oneness comes across with tremendous strength; which is why they appear so often with speaking parts in major TV shows geared, in part, to adult audiences.

They have no levers or lever, no strings to pull. They are owed no favors, and they owe none. Yet here they are on "The Danny Kaye Show" and with Andy Williams.

You see them on John Davidson's program and with John Gary; they host "Hullabaloo" and Martha Raye sheds thirty years to have a laugh and a shout with them on "Hollywood Palace."

When the "Beverly Hillbillies" and Jim Backus, who plays Mr. Magoo, go to Marineland for a network TV special, Chad and Jeremy turn up with their guitars and give them a song or two.

With deceptive ease, they bridge the unbridgable: they bestride the vast crevasse which divides young followers from the stolid middle-aged audience which is mistakenly presumed to be locked solidly in its armchair and its Welkian prejudice.

I don't want to delve around too much into the history of this charming English duo because the story's been told before. They are both pretty well educated and it shows. If you want "bags" then Chad's is music and Jeremy's is theatre though their facile talents are interchangable.

Chad is married to Jill; Jeremy is single and older by a few months more or less.

This album is delightful I think. I'm listening to it now and I find it very restful. It's a mingling of songs which are different and yet which belong together. Mostly they are contemporary - some upbeat, some down; some level and lilting. All prettily done.

My Favorites are "Dirty Old Town" (which is about Liverpool) and "September In the Rain." You will have your own.

You can play it in the morning as you shave or fry bacon and you can play it at night; or in the late afternoon when the sun dips behind the mountain. It's a marvelous value at any time because it's just a very fine piece of work.

If you don't agree, collect the tops of eleven cereal packs, insert them in this sleeve and mail them to Harold Pringle. - Derek Taylor

 

DISTANT SHORES

I saw a golden vision of a far off land

An orange revolution at the bounds of time

I looked again and saw my world too cold

Too dark and bleak and hard to bear.

Now that the dream has gone I fear

To stay in this unpalatable clime

When unreality is gold.

 

I saw a time of loving and I wanted to return

To that long forgotten have on the edge of night

Where life is rest and freedom is a song

And death is warm in sunrise glow.

And now I bind myself to go

To reach and hold and linger in the sight

Of peacetime that is dearly won.

- Jeremy Clyde, 1966

 

OF CABBAGES AND KINGS

At various times on this record Chad can be heard playing guitar, banjo, harpsichord, organ, tack piano, ukelin and sitar. Big deal.

Did you know that Jeremy wrote x out of y songs on this record, which means that if you've just bought it, he's just made x cents. So now you know.

[dedication] Chad's dog, Roger, who ate the entire score of "Ballad of the Green Berets," which would otherwise have been assured a place of honour on this album. Of course.

 

THE ARK

[no liner notes]

 

CHAD AND JEREMY

The sound of the exciting British duo Chad and Jeremy may be described as fresh and delicate and yet gently rocking. A remarkably polished pair of performers, they still have a relaxed warmth and contagious charm. In addition to being highly accomplished singers and instrumentalists, they are talented song writers as well - three of the numbers in this collection are originals: Pipe Dream, I Won't Cry and Should I. That they are just as adept in delivering songs of other composers is evidenced in their renditions here - writers as diverse as Rodgers and Hammerstein (I Have Dreamed), Bob Dylan (Mr. Tambourine Man) and Simon and Garfunkel (Homeward Bound).

Their personal magnetism, sense of wit and close rapport with each other and the audience have made them enormously popular in their personal appearances and on TV. One of the reasons for their great stage presence is the fact that both have studied acting - they know very well how to "project." Moreover, they project quite as delightfully on record; and this album, containing some of their very best, gives ample evidence of this fact.


Click here to visit their Official Website.

Copyright 2007  Frank Jason Rhoden.