The crosswinds of pop culture are curious and fickle, and right now they are giving Hall & Oates, of all people, a rare cool breeze at their backs.
The venerable blue-eyed soul duo begins a two-night stand at the Hollywood Bowl tonight with the Spinners, kindred spirits from the era of Philadelphia sidewalk harmonies. More than that, of-the-moment acts such as Death Cab for Cutie and the Killers have paid public tribute to the duo as an influence, and Gym Class Heroes have an album of Hall & Oates mash-ups on the way.
Daryl Hall also recently popped up in a cameo role on HBO's "Flight of the Conchords," following up his and John Oates' appearance last year on "Will & Grace." Kanye West, Tony Yayo and Wu-Tang Clan, meanwhile, are just some of hip-hop stars who have sampled Hall & Oates.
Clearly, the group that gave the world the infectious early-'80s hits "Kiss on My List," "Maneater" and "Private Eyes" has managed to earn a measure of coolness that eluded it originally. Pitchfork.com last month declared: "Believe it or not, Daryl Hall is an indie rocker."
"Well, we always knew we were cool, but, yeah, to critics -- the people that wrote about music instead of making it -- we weren't really part of what was cool," Hall said Wednesday. "We were always respected -- and more than respected -- by peers and people whose music we cared about. Paul McCartney, Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Al Green -- these are the people who told us they loved our music going back to the 1970s."
Hall believes that the resurgence of soul music in today's music scene has made it easier for a new generation of fans and critics to connect the dots back to Hall & Oates' songbook, which included six No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.
The pair have been friends since childhood. They met in Philadelphia and, as teens, were immersed in the soul scene there, and Hall found himself, literally, singing on street corners with members of the Delfonics and the Stylistics. That became a lasting compass point in their music, but when they later mixed it with a pop-rock sensibility it didn't appeal to the sensibilities of the music press.
"When we came up, if you were coming from influences in country music, folk or the blues, somehow that was automatically cool," the 60-year-old singer said. "But if you came from soul, well, there was something freaky about that. There were misunderstandings or a lack of understanding about what we were and what we were doing."
