{"id":2630,"date":"2019-04-12T14:45:39","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T13:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=2630"},"modified":"2021-04-09T12:30:13","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T11:30:13","slug":"daryl-hall-john-oates-the-exclusive-oral-history-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=2630","title":{"rendered":"DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES: THE EXCLUSIVE ORAL HISTORY, PART 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Shindig!\u00a0<\/em>issue #91, out in shops on May 2nd,\u00a0we\u2019re running a fascinating feature on the early years of chart-topping musical titans DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES, covering their early and often overlooked beginnings, which included stints in Philly soul groups, and encompassed a trio of fabulous LPs released on Atlantic Records.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ahead of a tour that will see them play arenas across the UK at the end of April, their first tour on this side of the pond in five years, here is an exclusive online treat as Daryl Hall & John Oates tell the tale of their nascent musical careers to THOMAS PATTERSON<\/strong><\/p>\n

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JOHN OATES:\u00a0<\/strong>As a little kid I sang. I was born in New York City and my earliest memories are walking around the streets as a little baby as soon as I could talk, and my proud aunt and grandmother would always tell a tale that I would sing for the guys who were working at the garage, they would make me sing. I have a recording of me singing a children\u2019s song at four-years-old that was recorded at Coney Island in a little phonograph booth and then a few years later I was singing an early Elvis song when I was about six or seven, so I was singing somehow naturally. I began to take guitar lessons at six years old, and I did a talent show at the Jersey Shore around the same age.<\/p>\n

My family\u2019s from New York but my father was relocated to the countryside outside of Philadelphia when I was four years old, so I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia. And during that time I was listening as a little kid to Philadelphia radio, to the early days of rock \u2019n’ roll. Philadelphia was an interesting radio scene because it was one of the first cities in America where radio stations embraced rock \u2019n’ roll early on, and I remember when this one pop radio station which was playing Patti Page, Johnny Mathis and a lot of the crooners of the early fifties, made a conscious decision to convert to a rock \u2019n’ roll format. That was a big deal, and I remember listening to Fats Domino and Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Elvis and all the early rockers who were around at that time. So that\u2019s how I was really introduced to the early days of rock \u2019n’ roll through Philadelphia radio that I was listening to.<\/p>\n

And as the years went on, growing up in this small town, I gravitated towards Philadelphia because it was only an hours train ride away and I would go there and do the things that teenagers do, buy clothes and buy records and things like that. I loved R&B but eventually I got interested through a friend of mine\u2019s older brother who had come back from college in the early sixties in the emerging folk music revival that was happening and I began to pour through records that were more traditional Americana, I guess you\u2019d call it. Bluegrass, Appalachian, delta blues, that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n