1969-1982
After Chad & Jeremy broke up, there was very little heard of either of them, musically, but that doesn't mean that they weren't active, both together and independently...
After the end of the recording deal, and even before, Jeremy had turned almost exclusively to the stage. He stopped making music and returned to his home country to act. Shortly after returning to London, he appeared in the critically acclaimed Conduct Unbecoming in 1969 (alongside Paul Jones). This play had a two-year run, starting in London and ending with an American tour. In 1971, Jeremy said about the play: "I've always been much more into acting so that when I came back to England and heard about Conduct, I knew it was just what I was looking for". Jeremy also lamented that, after two years with the play, he and co-star John Paul Jones were "still those rock stars!" After the US run of Conduct Unbecoming, he worked with Diana Rigg in The Misanthrope, which opened February 22, 1973, and has continued to appear in various stage productions to the present day.
The early part of the 1970s was one filled with turmoil for Chad Stuart. After the collapse of the Columbia contract, and the failure of the Sidewalk LP, Chad's musical career was at a crossroads. He worked as music director for the Smothers Brothers return to TV after their controversial 1969 cancellation and signed on as a staff producer at A & M records.
In 1973 he opened for Poco, and shortly thereafter had a near miss at a recording deal with a band called Captain. Chad & Jeremy attempted a comeback twice during this period. Dates are hard to come by, but it appears that while the first abortive try was around 1974, it wasn't until around 1977 or 1978 that Chad and Jeremy made a serious effort to get together to make few demos, including early versions of "Seascape" and "That's All There Is To Say". Unfortunately for C&J fans, these demos didn't result in a record deal, even though the duo was at a lyrical and musical high. "It was strange really," Chad reflects. "I think both of us knew we'd blown it with Columbia and that we'd probably never be given another chance at a major label, but we still had to put the songs on tape. Just for ourselves really."
Jeremy returned to acting, and Chad did a stint as guitarist in a Bruce Johnston (of Beach Boys fame) group called California. After that, Chad worked with the British film actress, Sarah Miles, on a musical called "Smiles". (Clever word play on her name, eh?) She did the book and lyrics, and he wrote the music. The show toured to horrendous reviews and was never heard of again, though it did get Chad back on tv, with a "fiasco" of an appearance on the Tonight Show.
Jeremy continued to act on tv and in stage plays, including doing the film Silver Bears with Michael Caine. Meanwhile Chad, with his marriage to Jill at an end, hit the road, opening for acts such as Poco and America. Chad ruefully recalls, "Once I even opened for Mountain in a bowling alley in Hartford!" In early 1977, he had a new record deal, with RCA and producers Terry Melcher and Bruce Johnston, but their subsidiary label collapsed before anything could be released. The only tracks that have survived are intriguing re-recordings of "Before and After" and "A Summer Song" with several new harmony lines. He later recorded the latter song, in a rendition much more faithful to the original, for a KTEL collection of re-recordings, released several times since, usually listed as a "Chad And Jeremy" recording, though Jeremy is nowhere to be found!
As the decade neared a close, Chad opted for financial security and ended the 1970's as a partner in a company called Audio Image Ltd. which produced radio commercials. "Not my favorite thing to do, really," Chad recalls drily, "But it did teach me how to buckle down and write instead of waiting around for inspiration."
Meanwhile, Jeremy's acting career, on stage and on screen, continued to flourish. In 1979, Jeremy was in The North Sea Hijack (known as Ffolkes in the US), with Roger Moore, Anthony Perkins, and James Mason, while much of his British TV work began to air on Masterpiece Theatre on PBS in America, exposing his acting ability to a much wider audience.
Though the two remained friends, and, as Jeremy later described it, "remained as close as you can when you're living six thousand miles apart", there was no sign of any future projects. "We were offered deals in the 70s," Jeremy says, "but we turned them down, largely because one person had to move to the other", but also because the deals involved doing live concerts and retreading old ground.
But just when it seemed there would be no more C& J, ever, a twist of fate intervened. As the wise man once remarked, "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making plans."