Firmly entrenched in the history of rock and roll, Terry Sylvester and John Ford Coley have teamed up to do what they do best — entertain audiences.
And on Jan. 30, the duo will perform an acoustic show at 7:30 p.m. at the Bromeley Family Theater at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford as the fifth show of the Bradford Creative and Performing Arts Center’s season.
“He sings his hits and I sing mine,” Sylvester told The Era on Wednesday. “It’s wonderful. Anything can happen, but nothing too dodgy.”
Sylvester is perhaps best known for being the lead singer of The Hollies, while Coley’s hits came largely from the duo England Dan and John Ford Coley.
“We help people down memory lane and make them laugh,” Coley said of the show. “We’re here to play music. Walk inside here and leave the world outside for a couple hours.”
With a smile in his voice, Coley said, “I can read an audience. They are generally thinking one of two things: I wonder how old these guys are and they look pretty good.”
It’s the music that’s key, he added. “They are just really good songs that stand the test of time. As an acoustic duo, we play them as close to the original as we can.”
Audiences love to hear those familiar songs, Coley said.
“I hope people come and enjoy themselves and go home with good memories,” Sylvester said, adding that he hopes people take home some of his albums, too.
“I just hope the people will laugh at my jokes,” he said, laughing. “We certainly have fun on stage. We are very lucky to be able to go on stage and hopefully make people happy.”
Coley said concert nights are always different, but he tries to be “on my best behavior” and entertain the audience with jokes and laughter. “Anybody can stay up and play, but maybe they’ve got the personality of a plastic fork. When the audiences leaves, you want them to go ‘yeah, I like those guys.’
“It’s fun to get out and play,” he added.
A classically trained pianist who majored in English literature, Coley said he tends to make jokes for an unusual reason — “One of the reasons I laugh so much is I’m intensely serious. I do it to calm me down and make me laugh.”
And the duo tend to laugh and joke through the show as well.
“Terry is the ugly one,” Coley said with a laugh. In a later interview the same day, Sylvester laughed at Coley’s remark, and added, “But I’ve just had my hair cut and I lost ten years.
“You do these shows together, but we don’t really talk in the dressing room. We only really plan the songs and the rest is just fate.”
Sharing some memories from rock and roll history, Coley said he’s played with Three Dog Night, Elton John, Chicago, Neil Sedaka, Bread and even opened for Led Zeppelin.
Sylvester said his memory was prompted just that day when he heard The Beatles song “When I’m 64” on the radio.
“I was actually in the studio on Abbey Road when they recorded that,” Sylvester said. A native of Liverpool, Sylvester actually grew up not far from Paul McCartney.
“Paul was, and is, a friend,” Sylvester said. That day, McCartney said to him, “Why don’t you come in and listen to some of the things we’re doing? It ended up being Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
Momentarily lost in the memory, Sylvester hummed the opening bars of the song and began singing. “They certainly paved the way for me and the rest of the Brits,” he said.
Both Sylvester and Coley said they were looking forward to the upcoming concert in Bradford. Both, however, were a little leery of the weather.
“It’s terribly cold here in St. Augustine, Florida,” Sylvester said. When he was told the temperature here in Bradford was 11 degrees at the time, he laughed and quickly said, “It isn’t terribly cold here in St. Augustine, Florida.”
Coley said he has a home in Charleston, S.C. “Two years ago it snowed there. We probably got a quarter inch of snow and the city shut down. Even Walmart was closed. You know it’s bad when Walmart is closed.”
