“It really started in the shower,” says Jon Gailmor of his singing partnership with Rob Carlson. “We went to high school together and were in the same phys. ed. class. So, we started singing in the shower after gym, doing the leads on ’50s oldies, and all the other people in there did the background vocals. Great reverb.”

Leaving their impromptu concert hall and Westport, Connecticut, homes behind them at graduation, Rob and Jon also said goodbye to each other. Jon earned a degree from the University of Pennsylvania and later taught in a Philadelphia ghetto school for a short period; next, he took an extended hitchhiking tour of Europe, where he sang in cafes, passed the hat, and decided to make his music his career.

Rob, meanwhile, spent four years at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and, after graduation, focused his full-time efforts on singing and songwriting. When Jon, returning from Europe, ran into his old singing buddy, he was playing in a Providence rock and roll group and feeling discouraged.

“It was getting ridiculous,” Rob remembers. “The band had two macrobiotic people and three hamburger types. There were just too many weird trips going on, and no good music was being made anymore.

“So, I quit, and Jon and I started singing together. It was then that I really discovered we were a lot better as a team than either of us was individually. We phrase together really well, read each other really well.

“We used to sing at parties,” Jon recalls. “Just freeform; everybody’d be singing. And we’d be looking at each other, you know, just shooting little glances back and forth all the time, because we felt a sort of—”

“A mind-locking that we’re able to do,” interrupts Rob. “I’ve never run into anybody else that I can do it with, and I’ve worked with many 20 musicians over the years.”

“I’ve had the same experience,” says Jon. “In Europe, I sang with another guy in cafes, and I’ve sung in other informal duos. But I could never really be free to harmonize the way I wanted to for fear of throwing them off. Rob’s the first person I could ever be myself with musically.”

After deciding to combine their talents, the two spent a summer on Martha’s Vineyard, where they wrote songs and got an act together. Then, for a while, they played coffeehouses and bars, which they now remember as a rather depressing experience.

“We’re not jukeboxes,” explains Rob, “and it’s disconcerting when someone interrupts one of our most tender songs to announce that a blue Chevy has to be moved. Someone once interrupted a very soft tune and said, ‘Do you do “Cecilia”?'”

The duo’s situation began to improve after they were introuced to producer Sandy Linzer, who helped them make a demo tape and peddled it to record companies. Polydor signed the pair and released an LP (Peaceable Kingdom), and audience interest in their material picked up rapidly.

“Before the album,” says Rob, “nobody wanted to hear our original stuff. All of a sudden, you put that damn record out, they hear the songs on the radio, and they want you to play them. You know, you’re the same person you were yesterday, but suddenly, you’re a lot heavier in people’s minds. People want security; they like to hear what they already know.”

Though somewhat perturbed by this phenomenon, Rob and Jon are glad that their audiences are now more receptive to their original material. Some of the critical reaction to their LP, however, leaves Rob far from happy. He says he resents its comparison to work by such artists as Loggins and Messina, and Seals and Crofts.

“I get sick of it,” he says. “There’s lot of rock bands with five guys who play electric instruments loud. Saying that Yes is like the Stones is about as valid as calling us another Loggins and Messina. I mean, sure, there’s two of us and we sing in harmony, but if you listen to the music and the words on our record…”

While Jon agrees vehemently with this sentiment, the pair are hardly in accord on all subjects, as becomes apparent when they continue to discuss their album. Rob, for example, is hopeful that, in addition to providing entertainment, the record might serve an educational purpose. “We put the painting on the cover so that people would sit there and get into it while they listen to the songs,” he explains. “Maybe that’ll prod them to go out and get into folk art.”

“I don’t really care if people get into folk art or not,” Jon interjects quickly.

“I do,” Rob reaffirms.

“I just hope they like our music; that’s all,” says Jon.

“I think that it might be a nice little offshot, though,” says Rob after a pause.

The pair take differences of opinion like this in stride. As Jon puts it, “Our personalities are as divergent as they can be. Our whole manner, upbringing, and background are all different.”

In many ways, Rob and Jon are indeed like night and day. The product of a fundamentalist Lutheran family, Rob spent much of his youth in the Midwest. Jon, whose parents are Jewish, comes originally from the New York area and consdiers himself “more or less an agnostic.” Rob expresses interest in history and literature and says he tends to “project and worry” more than Jon, who is “a bit more happy-go-lucky and live for the moment.” Rob describes himself as “recording-oriented, mainly because I’m trying to make some sort of a splash as a writer.” Jon, who writes fewer songs, prefers concerts to the studio.

But they both speak enthusiastically of the music resulting from their association. Whether in concert or in the studio,” say Rob and Jon, they are of one mind once the picking and singing begin. “The music itself,” maintains Jon, as Rob nods agreement, “is as cohesive as any force can be. That’s what brought us together originally. Just music. We’ve got that together.”

Carlson & Gailmor’s Peaceable Kingdom is available here.