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Daryl Hall and John Oates, commonly known as Hall & Oates, were an American pop rock duo formed in Philadelphia in 1970. Daryl Hall was generally the lead vocalist; John Oates primarily played the electric guitar and provided backing vocals. The two wrote most of the songs they performed, either separately or in collaboration. They achieved their greatest fame from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s with a fusion of rock and roll, soul music, and rhythm and blues. Though they are commonly referred to as Hall & Oates, both members have been adamant about the duo being called Daryl Hall & John Oates – its official name. They have been credited on albums as Daryl Hall & John Oates (or Daryl Hall John Oates) on all of their US releases. The duo reached the US Top 40 with 29 of their 33 singles charting on Billboard's Hot 100 between 1974 and 1991. Six of these peaked at number one: "Rich Girl" (1977), "Kiss on My List" (1980), the two 1981 releases "Private Eyes", and "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" (also a Hot Soul No. 1), "Maneater" (1982) and "Out of Touch" (1984). Their overall 16 US Top Tens also include "She's Gone", "Sara Smile", "You Make My Dreams", "Family Man", "Say It Isn't So", and "Method of Modern Love". Seven of their albums have been RIAA-certified platinum and six of them gold. In the United Kingdom, they have achieved success with two Top Ten albums and six Top 40 singles, two of which – "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" and "Maneater" – reached the Top Ten. The duo have spent 120 weeks in the UK Top 75 albums chart and 84 weeks in the UK Top 75 singles chart. While the duo had employed a wide variety of session musicians on their recordings, several in particular appear on many of their works and have toured with them, including guitarist G.E. Smith, bassist Tom "T-Bone" Wolk, drummer Mickey Curry and multi-instrumentalist Charles DeChant. In addition, they collaborated with sisters Sara Allen and Janna Allen on songwriting and composing. In 2003, Hall & Oates were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In August 2018, in a 60th-anniversary celebration of Billboard's Hot 100, the duo ranked 18 in a list of the top Hot 100 artists of all time and six in a list of the Hot 100's top duos/groups. They remain the most successful duo of all time, ahead of the Carpenters, the Everly Brothers, and Simon & Garfunkel. In September 2010, VH1 ranked the duo 99th among the 100 greatest artists of all time. In April 2014, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and on September 2, 2016, they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. History 1967–1972: Formation and early years Daryl Franklin Hohl (born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, on October 11, 1946) and John William Oates (born in New York City on April 7, 1948) first met at the Adelphi Ballroom in Philadelphia in 1967. Each was heading his own musical group, Hall with The Temptones and Oates with The Masters. They were attending a band competition, when they discovered that they were interested in the same music and both were attending Temple University. They started spending time together and eventually shared a number of apartments in the city. One of the apartments they shared had "Hall & Oates" on the mailbox, which became the duo's common nickname. It took them another two years to form a musical duo, and three years after that, they signed to Atlantic Records and released their debut album. The two did not start working together seriously until 1970 after Oates returned from an extended stay in Europe. 1972–1974: First albums Early in their recording careers, Hall and Oates had trouble clearly defining their sound, alternating among folk, soul, rock and pop. None of their early albums—Whole Oats, Abandoned Luncheonette, and War Babies—were very successful. Despite being produced by such big-name producers as Arif Mardin and Todd Rundgren, they had no hit singles. But after "She's Gone" off Abandoned Luncheonette was covered by Lou Rawls and Tavares, the latter version reached Number One on the R&B chart in 1974. Written for Hall's first wife, Bryna Lublin (Hall), the song was inspired by Oates's being stood up on a date on New Year's Eve. Another Abandoned Luncheonette single, "Las Vegas Turnaround", was written about (and mentioned by first name) Hall's girlfriend, flight attendant and future song-writing collaborator Sara Allen. 1975–1977: First hits After the release of War Babies in 1974, Hall and Oates left Atlantic Records to join RCA Records. Their first album for RCA, Daryl Hall & John Oates (often referred to by their fans as the silver album because of the silver foil material on the original album cover), was issued in 1975 and was their first notable success. The album contained the ballad "Sara Smile", a song Hall wrote for Sara Allen. The album cover depicted Hall and Oates, overly made up with cosmetic blush to the point where they looked feminine, especially the long-haired and clean-shaven Hall. Hall later said in an interview for VH1's Behind the Music that he looked like "the girl I always wanted to go out with" on the album cover. This cover was designed by Pierre LaRoche, who created the cover for Ziggy Stardust for David Bowie. "Sara Smile" became Hall and Oates' first Top 10 hit, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in June 1976. Atlantic subsequently re-released "She's Gone", which reached No. 7 in October 1976, and Abandoned Luncheonette, which reached #33 on the album charts on November 20, 1976, and staying on for 38 weeks. Hall and Oates followed those hits with the more pop-oriented album Bigger Than Both of Us later that year. Although the album's first single—the Philadelphia soul-oriented ballad "Do What You Want, Be What You Are"—barely made the Top 40, their second single, "Rich Girl", was a smash. The song was Hall and Oates's first No. 1 hit, reaching the top spot for the week ending March 26, 1977. 1977–1978: Leaner years and Sacred Songs After this small run of hits, Hall and Oates still encountered difficulty getting radio play. Despite touring constantly and recording albums with efficiency, the duo could not find any pop success for a number of reasons, mainly because of the popularity of the disco genre. By the time they released the rock-oriented albums Beauty on a Back Street in 1977 and Along the Red Ledge in 1978, disco music was trendy and taking most of the spots in popular music. They did release a few hit singles during this period: the follow-up to "Rich Girl," "Back Together Again," hit the Top 40, and "It's A Laugh" (from Along The Red Ledge) hit the top 20 in 1978. In 1977, RCA attempted to push Hall to the fore with his first solo effort Sacred Songs. However, after being presented with the highly experimental recording, produced by Robert Fripp of King Crimson, RCA became unwilling to release what was, in their view, a non-commercial album. Sacred Songs was eventually rele.... Discover the Chris Oates popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Chris Oates books.