Chad & Jeremy were a British musical duo consisting of Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde, who began working in 1962 and had their first hit song in the UK with "Yesterday's Gone" (1963). That song became a hit in the United States in the following year as part of the British Invasion. Unlike the rock-music sounds of their peers, Chad & Jeremy performed in a soft, folk-inflected style that is characterised by hushed and whispered vocals. The duo had a string of hits in the United States, including "Willow Weep for Me", "Before and After", and their biggest hit, "A Summer Song". After some commercial failures and divergent personal ambitions, Chad & Jeremy disbanded in 1968.
Chad Stuart continued to work in the music industry while Jeremy Clyde became a film and stage actor. In the early 1980s, the duo reunited to record a new album and perform concerts, including a multi-band British Invasion nostalgia tour. After another long period of separation, in the early 2000s Chad & Jeremy began performing again and developed a semi-regular schedule of touring for many years. Chad Stuart retired in 2016 and died on December 20, 2020, while Jeremy Clyde continues to tour and record as a solo artist.
Early years
Chad Stuart was born David Stuart Chadwick on 10 December 1941 in Windermere, Westmorland, and Jeremy Clyde was born Michael Thomas Jeremy Clyde on 22 March 1941 in Dorney, Buckinghamshire. The two met while attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama. Chad taught Jeremy to play the guitar and by 1962 they were performing together as a folk-music duo. They also formed a sideline project, a rock & roll band called the Jerks. After graduating from drama school, both musical groups were abandoned when Clyde left for Scotland to work for a short period at Dundee Repertory Theatre and Stuart worked in the music industry as a copyist and apprentice arranger. When Clyde returned, the pair resumed their folk act.
Early career
Chad & Jeremy frequently performed in London at a basement coffeehouse called Tina's, where they were discovered by John Barry. The influential composer quickly got them a contract with a small British record label, Ember. Their first single was "Yesterday's Gone", a Stuart composition that became their only hit record in the UK, reaching No. 37 in December 1963.
As the duo recorded this song, they developed their trademark style of singing: "whispering". "[John Barry] told us ... we sounded like a locker room full of football players ... in the end in desperation he said: 'Whisper it', so we kind of backed off a bit and so that sort of slightly sotto voce sound came about". They developed a style in which Jeremy usually sang the melody while Chad sang the higher harmonies.
British Invasion years
In 1964, Chad & Jeremy arrived in the United States as part of the British Invasion. According to Stuart, "We snuck in under the radar" because even though their folk songs and strings-backed ballads bore little resemblance to the rock music of most of their colleagues, they gained widespread acceptance in the US. "Yesterday's Gone" was released in the US by another small record label, World Artists Records, and rose to No. 21 in the Billboard Hot 100.
Their second US single "A Summer Song" (produced by Shel Talmy) was a surprise hit that Chad & Jeremy had intended as an album track. World Artists, however, released it as a single and it rose to No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 17 October 1964.
They became World Artists' most bankable act; Stuart said: "After that, the record company goes, 'Gee whiz, we've got a goldmine here, so let's start churning out those ballads, boys!'" The next single was a cover version of an Ann Ronell standard "Willow Weep for Me" (produced by Shel Talmy), which reached No. 15 on the US Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Easy Listening chart. All three hits were included on their 1964 debut album, Yesterday's Gone, which spent 39 weeks on the Billboard 200 and eventually peaked at No. 22.