Friday Nite Retro

Good evening and welcome to this week's edition of Friday Nite Retro - where we play the songs that you had forgotten. . .and for good reason!! Tonight's feature: rock and blue-eyed soul from Philly - Daryl Hall and John Oates.

Daryl Hall first met John Oates at the Adelphi Ballroom in Philadelphia in 1967 while attending Temple University. Both were heading their own musical groups at the time — Hall with the Temptones, and Oates with the Masters. They were there for a band competition when gunfire rang out between two rival gangs, and in trying to escape, they ran to the same service elevator. Because of their similar musical tastes, they quickly became acquainted. It would take them another two years to form a musical duo, and three years after that they had signed to Atlantic Records and released their debut. They quickly developed a reputation of being "blue-eyed soulsters", largely based on the soulful sound of "She's Gone".

She's Gone


"Sara Smile" became their first top-ten hit, reaching number four on the chart in June 1976.

Sara Smile


Rich Girl was Hall and Oates' first number one hit, reaching the pinnacle on March 26, 1977. It was my favorite song at the time.

Rich Girl


After this small run of hits, Hall & Oates encountered something of a dry spell. Despite touring constantly and recording albums with efficiency, the duo could not find any pop success for a number of reasons.

First, as Oates would later say, they were "in a learning process in the '70s". The two were still fine-tuning their soul-rock style. Also, the musical climate at the time was not very receptive to their sound. By the time they released the rock-oriented Along the Red Ledge in 1978, disco music was trendy and taking most spots of popular music. When they tried to jump on the disco bandwagon with the release of X-Static in late 1979, dance music was out of favor, and the album didn't fare well. They did record minor hits in the period, including "Back Together Again", "It's a Laugh", and "Wait for Me".

Wait For Me


The 1980s brought about change for Hall & Oates. They had determined that the biggest problem was that their music was being filtered through outsider producers and studio musicians who weren't familiar with their own tastes and thoughts. They also wished to capture the sound of New York City, which by then had become their home. Instead of recording in Los Angeles like they'd done previously, they decided to record at Electric Lady Studios in New York, just five minutes away from their apartments. They also began producing their own records, using their touring band in the studio, and enlisting Hall's girlfriend Sara Allen (and also her sister Janna) as a songwriting collaborator.

Voices was written, produced and arranged by Daryl Hall & John Oates in one month according to their authorized biography Dangerous Dances (by Nick Tosches). The result was a clearer style and a better sound, and beginning with the Voices LP in 1980, Hall & Oates had found the missing link in their formula for hits.

The first two singles from the album charted fairly well, with "How Does It Feel to Be Back" charting at #30 and the well-received cover of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" just missed the top ten, peaking at #12, but spent fourteen weeks in the top forty.

You've Lost that Loving Feeling


The third single, "Kiss on My List," hit number one in April 1981 and remained there for three weeks. The follow-up single, "You Make My Dreams," reached number five in July of that year. The other well-known single from Voices, apart from those four hits, is the emotive ballad "Everytime You Go Away," with powerful lead vocals by Hall, who wrote it. British singer Paul Young had a Billboard number-one hit with a cover of the song in 1985. Though the Hall & Oates original (recorded in a Memphis soul style) was never released as a single, it remains a favorite on the duo's greatest hits albums, was featured on their Apollo Theater CD in 1985, and is frequently featured in their live set lists to this day.

Kiss on my List


You Make My Dreams


By the time "You Make My Dreams" was falling down the charts, Hall & Oates had already released their follow-up album Private Eyes. Having worked in the studio while Voices was at its peak in popularity, the two already had most of their material laid down and felt no need to repeat the old formula from that LP. The result was the first Hall & Oates album to reach the top ten on the Billboard 200 album chart. The four singles from Private Eyes all reached the top forty.

The title track and "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" were consecutive number one hits, with the latter song hitting the top spot on the R&B and the pop charts (one of the few songs by a white act ever to do so). "Did It in a Minute" reached No. 9 in the spring of 1982, and "Your Imagination" peaked at No. 33. The set is considered among the duo's best albums, mixing soul, new wave, and power pop.

Private Eyes


I Can't Go for That


Did it in a Minute


Next came H2O, a polished, synth-heavy album that became the duo's most successful album to date. H2O reached number three on the album charts and spawned three top-ten singles. "Maneater", the biggest hit of their career, reached the number-one spot on December 18, 1982 and stayed there for four weeks. The ballad "One on One" and a cover of Mike Oldfield's song "Family Man" reached number seven and number eight in March and June of 1983, respectively.

Maneater


One on One


Family Man


By the fall of 1983, Hall & Oates were one of the biggest pop music acts in America. They had five number-one singles to their credit, two consecutive top-ten albums, and were one of the biggest names on MTV. The constant loop of recording, promoting, and touring wore them down, though, and in 1983 they could only put out a greatest-hits package, Rock'n Soul Part 1. The album peaked at number seven and the two new songs on the LP both became top-ten hits as well.

The lead-off single for the Greatest Hits album, "Say It Isn't So", battled six weeks for the number-one spot with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson's "Say, Say, Say" at the high-point of the Thriller hysteria. "Say It Isn't So" remained at number two for an impressive four weeks from December 1983 to January 1984 (The battle with the McCartney/Jackson single led DJ Peter Bush of New York's WPLJ Radio, which had just switched from rock to Top 40 the previous June, to intro the Hall & Oates entry "Say, Say, Say It Isn't, Isn't, Isn't So, So, So").

Say it Isn't So


Hall & Oates' followup, "Adult Education," got heavy airplay on both pop and black (urban contemporary) radio and hit number eight on the Billboard Hot 100) in April 1984. It was accompanied by a dark, New York City-oriented music video set in a cave. John Oates later told VH1 that the clip resembled the Survivor TV show on acid.

In that month, the Recording Industry Association of America issued a report declaring Hall & Oates as the most successful duo in the history of recorded music.

Adult Education


Hall & Oates returned to the studio in 1984 after some time off to begin work on the Big Bam Boom LP. Unlike their previous work, this album had a more urban feel to it. Noted remix and hip-hop icon Arthur Baker worked closely with the duo as a consultant and did dance remixes of four of the album's tracks. Hall himself performs some light rapping on the songs "Method of Modern Love" and "All-American Girl". Released in late 1984, the first single off the LP, Out of Touch, became the group's sixth number-one hit on December 8, 1984. "Method of Modern Love", which debuted on the pop charts while "Out of Touch" was at number one, reached number five in February 1985. "Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid" and "Possession Obsession" reached the top thirty in 1985 as well.

Out of Touch


Method of Modern Love


Some Things are Better Left Unsaid


Hall & Oates signed with Arista Records in 1987; their first album for the label, Ooh Yeah!, included the hits "Everything Your Heart Desires" (number three hit in May 1988 - their last to make the top ten), "Missed Opportunity", and "Downtown Life". This may have been the last Hall and Oates album - other than greatest hits packages - to enjoy platinum success.

Everything Your Heart Desires


Missed Opportunity


Hall & Oates did one more album for Arista called Change of Season. The album's first single, "So Close" (co-produced by Jon Bon Jovi) hit number eleven on the pop charts and was Hall & Oates' last major hit. Another song off the album, "Don't Hold Back Your Love", has become a Hall & Oates staple. Change of Season was a more mainstream-rock album than their previous work. Despite the fact that Ooh Yeah! and Change of Season went platinum and gold, they were perceived as disappointments.

So Close


Forty years after they first met in Philadelphia -- and twenty years after they became the single most successful duo of all time -- Daryl Hall & John Oates continue to record and perform together their distinctive and enduring blend of soulful sounds. Starting out as two devoted disciples of earlier soul greats, Hall & Oates are soul survivors in their own right. They have become such musical influences on some of today’s popular artists that the September 2006 cover of Spin Magazine’s headline read: “Why Hall & Oates are the New Velvet Underground”. Their artistic fan base includes Rob Thomas, John Mayer, Brandon Flowers of the Killers, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and MTV’s newest hipsters Gym Class Heroes who dubbed their tour “Daryl Hall for President Tour 2007”.

And, for the trivia-minded among you:

- While much of the duo's reputation is due to its sustained pop-chart run in the 1980s, Hall & Oates are also respected for their ability to cross style boundaries. To this day, "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" is one of the most-sampled songs by R&B and hip-hop groups over the last twenty-five years, being referenced by acts from Heavy D & the Boyz to Tamia to 2 Live Crew.

- De La Soul sampled "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" for the track "Say No Go," from their 1988 debut album Three Feet High and Rising, the title of which is one of Hall's vocal hooks from the hit song. Hall & Oates liked it so much that they replicated the De La Soul arrangement in their live 1990 performance at the U.S. Earth Day twentieth anniversary concert in New York's Central Park.

- "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" is also heavily sampled in the 2003 hit "Sunrise" by the Simply Red. The song also includes original lyrics from "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" placed at the chorus and sung by a female singer.

- The song was sampled in a one time collaboration performance by John Mayer and Just Blaze called Alife.

- Fun Lovin' Criminals sampled a portion of the beat from "One on One" for their song "Sugar", off their 1998 album "100% Colombian".

- The hook of the song "Method Man", from the Wu-Tang Clan's 1993 album, Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers, copies the refrain of Hall and Oates' "Method of Modern Love" ("The M-E-T-H-O-D...Man").

- Kanye West sampled the song "Grounds for Separation" twice -- once for Rhymefest for his song "Fight with the Best" and once for Jagged Edge for the remix of their song "Let's Get Married". (West did not appear on the Jagged Edge remix.)

- The Private Eyes title track, with its catchy hand-clap chorus, was the topic of a 2003 episode of the VH1 show I Love the 80's, with several artists remembering the single and the duo fondly. Another track from the album, the arena-rocker "Head Above Water", has been used in TV advertisements for the New York Aquarium on Coney Island.

- In 2004, a dance act called Uniting Nations sampled Hall and Oates hit "Out of Touch". The song, also called "Out of Touch", achieved success across Europe and had a long UK chart run which spanned over several months.

- The duo appeared in an episode of NBC's Will & Grace ("The Definition of Marriage") initially aired on February 9, 2006.

- In the mid 80's, the duo's song "One on One" -- with its clever references of romance and basketball -- was used in NBA commercials.

- In 2002, their hit song "Out of Touch" was used for the soundtrack in the successful video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, playing on the pop radio station Flash FM. In 2006, their song "Family Man" was used for the soundtrack for its prequel, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, once again playing on Flash FM.

- The song "Rich Girl" was played in an episode of television's cop series Hunter. In the episode a 'rich girl' commits the 'perfect crime' but in the end cannot profit from it because all her family money will only be hers when the 'killer' is apprehended. With no options left, she commits suicide eating yogurt and sleeping pills with the song "Rich Girl" playing.

- "Rich Girl" was also in an episode of the FX series, "The Shield", sung briefly by one of the characters in Season 2.

- According to Daryl Hall, "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" helped inspire the song "Billie Jean". "Michael Jackson once said directly to me that he hoped I didn't mind that he copied that groove (from "I Can't Go For That"). That's okay; it's something we all do. Eddie Van Halen told me that he copied the synth part from "Kiss on My List" and used it in "Jump". I don't have a problem with that at all."

- Cereal restaurant The Cereal Bowl has a menu item named "Haul'n Oats™," which consists of Quaker oatmeal with maple syrup, raisins, dried cranberries, coconut, and walnuts.

- The Red Hot Chili Peppers refer to Hall and Oats in their song "Nevermind" from the album "Freaky Styley".

- British singer / songwriter / guitarist Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues includes his version of Hall and Oates' first ever single, the Whole Oats single "I'm Sorry", on his 1980 solo album Night Flight.