Charles & Eddie

This US vocal duo, comprising Charles Pettigrew (b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 6 April 2001, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) and Eddie Chacon (b. Oakland, California, USA), first met on a New York subway train. Chacon, allegedly, was clutching a copy of Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man, and so the two of them struck up a conversation and later started performing together. Chacon had grown up in Oakland, California, where he was in a soul band, and later moved to Miami, Florida, where his recording career continued on projects with the Dust Brothers and Daddy-O. Daddy-O produced Chacon’s two solo albums, both of which left him feeling frustrated and determined to return to the soul music he had known in his youth. Pettigrew, meanwhile, was raised in Philadelphia, and went on to study jazz vocals at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston, while also singing with the pop band Down Avenue. Charles and Eddie enjoyed a worldwide hit in 1992 with ‘Would I Lie To You?’ (the single topped the UK charts), which was followed in early 1993 with ‘NYC (Can You Believe This City?)’, based on the story of their meeting. Both tracks were on their debut Duophonic, which was produced by Josh Deutsch and consisted mainly of original material, notably Chacon’s ‘December 2’, a tribute to his brother’s death on that date. A second album, belatedly released three years later, was a disappointingly bland collection, and following its release the duo split-up to work on solo projects. Pettigrew later sang with the Tom Tom Club on their 2000 set The Good The Bad The Ugly, but lost his battle with cancer the following April.