The P Speaks: Radio Station HOBO

Whitebeard the Pirate Signs Off…

photo credit: Christopher Dunn | www.utahphillips.org

“In a mass marketing culture, a revolutionary song is any song you chose to sing yourself. Welcome to the revolution.”  - U. Utah Phillips

U. Utah Phillips died this week. Heart failure. Aged 73.

Utah Phillips was a folk festival staple in Northern California over the years – as a folk singer, labor organizer, peace activist, storyteller, and poet. He was also a very visible presence – full white beard, flowing white hair, and usually a big ol’ hat with a colorful shirt and suspenders. He was as much a historian as a singer – his songs educated his audience as he told the story.

A long time resident of Nevada City, in the Sierra Nevada mountains, he was the self-titled “Voice of the Great Southwest.”  Born Bruce Duncan Phillips, he took the name U. Utah Phillips as a tribute to fellow musician T. Texas Tyler. His other influences included folk singers Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Hank Williams.

An Army private during the Korean War, Phillips referred to this experience as the turning point of his life. Affected by the devastation and human misery he had witnessed in Korea, back in America he faced the now-familiar difficulties of returning combat veterans.

He became a drifter, riding freight trains around the country. Phillips got off a train in Salt Lake City, destitute and drinking, and wound up at the Joe Hill House, a homeless shelter. He later ended up working at the Joe Hill House, and Phillips credited Ammon Hennacy, the social reformer, pacifist and anarchist who operated the facility, with having provided him with a philosophical framework around which he later constructed songs and stories. In 1968, he ran for the U.S. Senate for the Peace and Freedom Party. And lost. He eventually left Utah for the folk community in Saratoga Springs, and released his first record in 1973. Most of the songs on his early albums are railroad related – a single from his first record, ‘Moose Turd Pie,’ tells the story of a work gang repairing railroad tracks in the southwest, and saw extensive airplay in 1973. 

He was a proud member of the Industrial Workers of America, the Traveling Musicians’ Union 1000, and Grand Duke of Hobos. He was also a member of the great Traveling Nation, the community of hobos and railroad bums that populates the rail lines in the Midwest, and has been an archivist of their history and culture.

He partnered with a number of people over the years – from filling in for Kate Wolf when she became too sick to perform, to Rosalie Sorrels, to Ani DeFranco. His songs have been performed by many, including Emmylou Harris, Tom Waits, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Joe Ely and others. He received a Grammy nomination for his work with Ani DeFranco and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Folk Alliance in 1997. After his ability to travel was hampered by heart disease, he hosted his own weekly radio show, Loafer’s Glory: The Hobo Jungle of the Mind.

Despite his 38-year career as a folksinger, he claimed that he never lost his stage fright before performances. Though he started out as a singer, he was hesitant about his guitar playing, and over the years his concerts became increasingly based on storytelling instead of just song. He claimed his personality brought him fans. “It is better to be likeable than talented,” he often said.

He had a way with words right up to the end… I particularly like the letter he sent out a few weeks ago to family and friends, knowing the end was in sight. “Utah here, with a rambling missive pandect and organon regarding my current reality…” You can read it all here. 

Among his many soapboxes, one of my favorites was his taking issue with NPR for accepting corporate donations, the ‘Talking NPR Blues‘. I’ve excerpted the end of it below, but it’s worth a full listen.

I got tired of being treated like a veg
So I called up the station and canceled my pledge
In a mighty act of liberation
Sent the money off to my community station

I said “I love you”

But if you blow it
I’ll sure as hell let you know it
I’ll knock the radio off the shelf
Buy a transmitter and do it myself

Whitebeard the Pirate

This is radio station H O B O
Broadcasting on a vagrancy of 60 to 90 days
Signing off
For now.

 

Stranded: Rock And Roll For A Desert Island

The ‘desert island album’ was already a dusty cliche by the time Greil Marcus asked 20 writers to submit essays on the topic in 1978. The resulting book, Stranded: Rock And Roll For A Desert Island, features the writers that Marcus most wanted to work with at the time, including critics known (Lester Bangs, Nick Tosches, Langdon Winner, Dave Marsh, and others) and unknown (Ariel Swartley? Grace Lichtenstein? Joe McEwen? Tom Smucker?). As you might expect, the essays are hit and miss, depending on who you’re stuck on that island with.

One critic (Lichtenstein) chose to strand herself with The Eagles’ Desperado, which led me to contemplate – for the first time in my life – the phrase ‘If I were stuck on a desert island with an Eagles album, I’d ____________’ (in case you’re curious, some representative answers were a) drown myself, b) go raving mad, and c) break the thing over my knee).

On the positive side, Langdon Winner makes an excellent case for Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica as the perfect desert island album. According to him, “[it] offers two features that other records do not: 1) an enormous variety of musical puzzles that require a considerable amount of time and concentration to figure out, and 2) a seemingly inexhaustible supply of unfinished ideas that one can fill in oneself.” Winner’s essay doesn’t just stand out in this collection, it’s perhaps the most persuasive argument ever put forth on behalf of Beefheart’s offbeat classic.

Stranded is stunning in its lack of musical breadth, and shows how many critics of the day were drinking directly from the same punch bowl. The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison each get two essays, and the four black artists represented were pre-Beatles artifacts. Very little of the music represented here lives outside the rock canon of the 60′s and 70′s. Robert Christgau laments as much in his forward to the 1995 edition (pictured above), “It would be nice to encounter James Brown or George Clinton or Public Enemy in this context.”

A profane phrase in Nick Tosches’ essay on Sticky Fingers offended the publisher so much that publication of the book was delayed by nearly a year. To his credit, Marcus refused to let the book be released without the offending phrase. If all the essays included here had the wit and edge of Tosches’ piece, this would really be something. Yet as it stands, Stranded is a book that all too often leaves you feeling just that.

*****

AND THE OBVIOUS QUESTION: What’s your desert island album?

*****

Some great answers…

Gene says Dire Straits: “…[an] excellent air guitar album — and when you’re on a desert island you don’t have to worry about being seen…”

Rob M says The Wall: “…every time I listen to that album, I hear something I never heard before…”

kdub says Golden Age Of Radio: “…two of my DI albums would be two you introduced me to: Alabama 3’s Exile on Coldharbour Lane and Josh Ritter’s Golden Age of Radio.”

Punker Foo says Bad Brains: “The range of this album is fantastic and it has so much raw material to work with, it is to the music lover what a set of Lincoln Logs would be to a stranded architect.”

EZ Rawlins says People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm: “…deep, wide, and soulful. It’s a journey.”

DancingTool says Never Mind The Bollocks: “It’s the perfect blend of anger and frustration with just enough pop riffs to keep me from talking to a volleyball.”

Jimmy James says War Of The Worlds: “Richard Burton narrating War Of The Worlds. Incredible.”

CindyPinc In The Stink says Sgt Peppers: “I’ve already proved to myself that I can listen to it over and over and over and over again and never lose interest.”

Cordell says Girlfriend: “Now I’m going to have trouble sleeping as I sit and wonder if I chose correctly.”

Pricklee Pete says Pelican West: “…it’s an album that will always make me feel good even when I’m pondering how high up my leg I’ll need to amputate to keep the gangrene at bay.”

Rob F says Five Leaves Left: “…if only for Cello Song which, despite the fact I’ve heard it a million times, never, ever fails to make my bones ache (in a good way).”

Dylan says Zenyatta Mondatta: “Solid songs start to finish.”

LC says The Very Best Of Elvis Costello & The Attractions: “It has the right song for almost every emotion.”

RKelly says London Calling: “It’s a no-brainer.”

Arlo Chingaderas says Life Is… Too $hort: “A true west coast classic.”

jkg says Abbey Road: “I can rediscover songs on that record over and over again.”

Op-Ed: Pete Seeger’s Public Service

With graduation hanging in the air, and commencement speakers aplenty littering the airwaves with lofty ideals and canned inspiration, I’ve noticed one theme that seems to be a given for any keynote address: public service. Barack Obama became the highest profile example of this trend last Sunday, when he told Wesleyan University’s graduates “We may disagree as Americans on certain issues and positions, but I believe we can be unified in service to a greater good. I intend to make it a cause of my presidency, and I believe with all my heart that this generation is ready and eager and up to the challenge.”

So the idea, the murky abstraction of public service lodged itself in my brain, somewhere between cold beer and dental hygiene. And that probably would have been that – just another stray thought swirling down the gutter of my mind – until The P and I stumbled across a PBS special on Pete Seeger. I’ve always admired Seeger’s reputation as a radical, but his albums have never spent much time on the turntable. Mick Farren brilliantly sums up my apathy towards Seeger’s music thusly: “It is unfortunate that his voice has such an air of good humour, brotherly love, patience and evangelical fervour that I am almost incapable of listening to him.”

Fortunately, the program that P and I were watching was discussing Seeger’s involvement in helping clean up the Hudson River in the early 1970′s. It seems that at the time, many companies were dumping industrial waste into the river at will, and it had become a toxic mess. In 1968, Seeger and a band of cohorts began building the sloop Clearwater, a 76-foot replica of the kind of ships that had sailed up and down the river for centuries. Seeger’s idea was to take people out on the boat, play music for them, and let them see the environmental degradation for themselves. In this way, he reasoned, they would take it upon themselves to do something about it.

In 1969, the Clearwater made her maiden voyage, and before long people began to take notice of what was going on in the Hudson. Enough people became aware of the pollution, and enough voices were raised over the matter that General Electric eventually paid more than a half billion dollars for the removal of toxic substances.

So at this point in the program, the little old drunk guy that runs the switchboard in my brain connected Thought A to Concept B, and I realized: this is what public service looks like. It doesn’t have to be some photo-op soup kitchen pose, or the equivalent of picking up trash along the highway. Pete Seeger made it look pretty easy: find something you care about and go out and fight for it. Lord knows that this country has enough potholes to fill in. If and when Obama assumes the White House, I’ll have a new model for answering his call to public service.

*****

Further reading…

A Man, A Boat, A River, A Dream – Audubon magazine, March 1971

The Protest Singer: Pete Seeger And American Folk Music – The New Yorker, April 17, 2006

Masterpiece: Master Of Reality

[Today: Black Sabbath deals out some doom...]

The scariest horror movie monsters are those deliberate, lumbering instruments of death like Frankenstein, the Terminator, and that gang of zombies from Night Of The Living Dead. These creatures were never going to outrun you, but one way or another they were going to end up with their hands around your throat. Much of Black Sabbath’s music sounds like that – abnormally strong, consumed with darkness, and fully intent on destruction.

Sabbath made seven consecutive albums worth of mini-epic horror flicks, starring Tony Iommi’s guitar and Ozzy Osbourne’s pipes. Ozzy is easily the greatest heavy metal singer of all-time, simply because he never lost control of his vocals, never lapsed into operatic silliness, and always sounded like the voice of doom itself. Meanwhile Iommi played his guitar like a man wielding a sledgehammer. If Iommi’s riffs were the sound of a broken bell tolling within a burning church, then Ozzy was the creature standing among the rubble, licking blood from his fangs and savoring every drop.

On Sabbath’s third studio album, Master Of Reality, they dipped their sound in sludge and made the heaviest album of their very, very heavy career. In his November 1971 review of the album, uber-critic Lester Bangs observed that “Rock & Roll has always been noise, and Black Sabbath have boiled that noise to its resinous essence.”

Oddly, Sabbath were most often compared to Grand Funk Railroad in their day – proving both that they were critically misunderstood and utterly without peer. Nonetheless, Master Of Reality is a massively influential album that spawned a thousand metal zombies, who rose from their shallow graves to stagger into the grey sunrise of the 80′s.

Listen: Into The Void

Buried Treasure: L.A.M.F.

[Today: Poor mixing kills one of the best albums of the punk era...]

The Heartbreakers were mainly punks by association – guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan had come from the New York Dolls, and bassist Richard Hell would leave to form the Voidoids before L.A.M.F. was recorded in 1977. The group had plenty of punk attitude, but musically they had more in common with 50′s rockers like Eddie Cochran, Johnny Burnette, and young Elvis than they did with the safety pin through the cheek crowd. In the 50′s, the term ‘punk’ was used to describe a street hoodlum, and that’s the kind of punkdom that Thunders and company were striving for.

Songs like ‘Pirate Love’ and ‘Born To Loose’ betray a strong connection to rock & roll’s earliest sounds. Sure, the music here is muddy, raunchy, and sloppy, but the engine driving these songs is still one of youthful rebellion, tough talk, fast cars and loud guitars. Make no mistake, the Heartbreakers were very badly behaved (they are widely credited with introducing heroin into the British punk scene, with disastrous results), but they rocked in a way that most punk bands would have either disguised or sped up, and it set them apart from their peers.

Fanzine Negative Reaction got at part of the band’s dilemma in a June 1977 article: “The Heartbreakers never really got off the ground in the States, probably because the Dolls are still around and the Heartbreakers were seen as nothing more than a cheap imitation of the original.” But more importantly than any image problems, mastering mistakes led to a horrible mix of L.A.M.F., crippling the group’s progress, and leading to their demise.

The album was remixed with somewhat favorable results in late 1977 under the title The Lost ’77 Mixes, but it wasn’t until Thunders took it upon himself to remaster the album in 1984 that it received the studio treatment it had deserved all along. Released under the title L.A.M.F. Revisited, it showed the Heartbreakers to be a band that was perfectly behind its time, yet miles ahead of its contemporaries.

Listen: Pirate Love

Stuff That I’ve Been Hearing Lately – The Cover Art

This mix is almost two years old, so that title is pretty misleading. I haven’t actually listened to this one in a while, but The P and I agree that it’s one of my more interesting mix efforts. The idea here was to knock off one of Reid Miles’ great Blue Note album designs in its entirety, front and back. The front piece was taped directly to the back piece, so that in its final form, this mix resembled a small LP.

Call it homage or call it forgery, but here it is…

[Here's the front...]

[Here's the back...]

[Here's the track listing...]
The Last Emperor * Let’s Ride
Mylo * Musclecars
Macaco * Pirata de la Aqua Salada
Living Things * I Owe
101ers * Keys To Your Heart
George Brigman * Jungle Rot
Nicky Siano * Exuma, The Obeah Man
Calexico * Love Will Tear Us Apart
Mark Alan * Raindogs
Joni Mitchell * The Jungle Line
INXS * Jan’s Song
Arctic Monkeys * Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured
The Jungle Brothers * 40 Below Trooper
The Kleptones * 1150 Closer To The Boxer
DJ Shadow * Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt
The Coup * We Are The Ones

[Here are the liner notes...]
THIS IS some of the stuff that has been repeatedly passing over my turntable (and through my iPod) in the last 6 months. Consider it a snapshot – not necessarily perfect, perhaps a bit blurry around the edges, but nonetheless capturing an absolute moment in time. To that end, these liner notes were concocted in real-time – ie, the time it took me to listen to this mix:

Let’s Ride (#1) is a sweet-ass hip-hop anthem by The Last Emperor. His 2003 album Palace Of The Pretender was cited by Mojo magazine as one of the most overlooked albums of all-time. It took me two years to track this album down, and well worth the effort.

Musclecars (#2) by Mylo is a Royksopp-ian blast of the bubbly techno that makes its parent album, Destroy Rock & Roll, one of the very best of 2006.

Pirata de Agua Salada (#3) comes by way of Latin American super group Macaco. Well, it actually comes by way of fellow former-Springfield High Peace Club member Aldo Velasco, who recently introduced me to their seductive and fully trippy album Rumbo Submarino from 2001.

I admit it – I slept on the Living Things in ’05. Their album Ahead Of The Lions was (in head-bobbing hindsight) one of the better releases of the year. I Owe (#4) could serve as the soundtrack for anyone under the age of 30 who’s not happy with the state of the union.

Keys To Your Heart (#5) proves that Joe Strummer was bound for big things, Clash or no. His pre-stardom group, 101er’s has seen their stock rise posthumously with last year’s re-release of Elgin Avenue Breakdown. A great voice and an undeniable groove.

Self-produced and overlooked fuzz rock genius George Brigman was Baltimore’s answer to Iggy Pop. Not surprisingly, Jungle Rot (#6) has only recently been recognized as a classic so far ahead of its time that it couldn’t have possibly been anything but alien to the 18 people who heard it in 1975.

Not all disco-era dance music was cheeze out of a can. Former Paradise Garage and Studio 54 DJ Nicky Siano was commemorated on last year’s Soul Jazz Records compilation The Gallery. And to these ears Exuma, The Obeah Man (#7) hasn’t aged a day in 30 years.

As much as I dig the new Calexico album Garden Ruin, I keep going back to their ’05 cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart (#8). Like most great covers, it stays true to the Joy Division original, but is weirdly satisfying and primal in its own right.

Mark Alan is a local Eugene, OR musician that used to play, troubadour-style, while wandering around the University of Oregon campus. His albums have extremely limited distribution (just try to find one, I dare ya) but his cover of Tom Waits Raindogs (#9) shows off both his chops and Waits’ talent as a songwriter. Great stuff from an overlooked voice.

Rock’s first dabbling in World Music? You be the judge. From 1975’s overlooked The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Joni Mitchell’s Jungle Line (#10) is a sultry dis(ertation) on the nature of progress. Detached yet warm, this is Joni at her best. Fun fact: the Burundi drums on this track were sampled on the Beastie Boys ‘B-boy Bouillabaisse’ from Paul’s Boutique (but then, what wasn’t sampled on that album?).

Ah, INXS. Shabooh Shoobah is never far from my turntable, thus Jan’s Song (#11) is never far from my turntable, either.

Arctic Monkeys do nifty songs about life’s mundane moments. Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured (#12) is about trying to cram one’s whole crew into a single taxi. A silly conceit, sure, but then Rock-n-Roll was never meant to be calculus.

A nice joint from one of hip-hop’s most overlooked groups, the Jungle Brothers’ 40 Below Trooper (#13) is a rare moment of braggadocio from these otherwise humble yet headstrong trailblazers.

From mash-up masters Kleptones’ latest offering 24 Hours (this and more, available free at www.kleptones.com), 1150 Closer To The Boxer (#14) displays their ability to pull wildly disparate elements into a surprisingly cohesive whole. The formula: Simon + Garfunkel + The Cure + rappin’ = wowzers.

Speaking of cohesion, does anyone construct a better beat than DJ Shadow? I know that Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt (#15) won’t be a surprise for those of you with an ear to the ground, but it’s been seeing a whole lot of play in my universe lately.

Albums by The Coup put a new spin on the term ‘party politics’. Their decision to turn the amp to 11 on both the message and the funk makes their latest, Pick A Bigger Weapon, the best album of 2006, so far. We Are The Ones (#16) is just one piece of a brilliant 17-layer cake of poetic disaffection.

Cover design swiped from REID MILES’ design of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers album A Night In Tunisia on Blue Note
Photos by The P
Mix and notes whipped up by dk

[And here's the inspiration...]

The P Speaks: Light Rock, Less Talk

I went to the dentist the other day. I have a pretty decent dentist: nice punctual staff, renovated office with a view of a tree-filled park, all the latest gadgets for plaque removal, and none too preachy about my flossing regimen.

But the music. Whoa. They broadcast a local radio station who’s claim to fame is “light rock, less talk. And at least three commercials for every song.” I wasn’t consciously tracking the playlist during my hour visit, but it was just so bad I couldn’t help it. I did count – there were 9 songs in a 60 minute span, and most were lil’ shorties. So between Rod Stewart (who I understand is a shitbag), Lionel Richie, Mariah Carey and 6 other songs, they had 2-3 commercials. It reinforced the ghastly state of FM radio, and reassured me that I am missing nothing by leaving my dial at NPR.

And it reminded me of Dr. Kessler.

Dr. Kessler was my childhood dentist. He subscribed to Muzak, back when Muzak was a single bland channel, designed to fade into the background like the beige carpet and sofa. Except that the volume of the speakers in his office was loud… way too loud for Muzak. It made waiting for your appointment (and there always seemed to be waiting waiting waiting) that much more painful. These were the experiences that gave Muzak a black eye.

[The good doctor's dental career came to an abrupt end when he took his wife hostage in their home with a kitchen knife, and it was widely reported in the local papers. Oddly, we seemed to stop going to him right about that same time...]

Buried Treasure: Safe As Milk

[Today: A Rosetta Stone to the recordings of a very eccentric artist...]

It’s easy enough to imagine Captain Beefheart, in top hat and pointy beard, wandering around a musical desert of his own devising. He invites the image in the first lines of the first song of his debut album: “Well I was born in the desert came on up from New Orleans/Came up on a tornado sunlight in the sky.” Of course, he rasps it out like a cross between Howlin’ Wolf and latter day Tom Waits, all gravel and kerosene.

Safe As Milk was originally recorded in 1966, but that version of the album was rejected by A&M head Jerry Moss for being “too negative”. The good Cap’n reconvened his band (in the desert, of all places), and created what would become the 1967 release of the album. This first leg into Beefheart’s musical desert contains inroads to the many places that he would eventually travel.

The more straight-up blues/rock of 1972′s Clear Spot and The Spotlight Kid is foreshadowed here by ‘Sure Nuff ‘N Yes, I Do’ and ‘Zig Zag Wanderer’. The mainstream grab of ’74′s Bluejeans & Moonbeams is similarly indebted to the straight doo-wop of ‘I’m Glad’ and ‘Call On Me’. Oddballs ‘Autumn’s Child’ and ‘Dropout Boogie’ hint at the savant ramblings of 1969′s Trout Mask Replica. Meanwhile the songs ‘Electricity’ (which would eventually lead to a split with A&M) and ‘Abba Zaba’ are in a league unto themselves – sui generis concoctions that amount to the missing link between the Delta Blues, AC/DC, and the White Stripes.

Beefheart’s oft-acclaimed “masterpiece” Trout Mask Replica has reaped the lion’s share of praise within his discography, but it has always struck my ears as the sound of a bunch of idiots who don’t know what they’re doing. But on Safe As Milk, Beefheart sounds like a man with a very eccentric plan, much to do, and many places to go.

Listen: Sure Nuff ‘N Yes I Do

*****

[Trivia Question: What does 'Safe As Milk' have in common with Crazy Horse's self-titled 1971 debut album?]

Masterpiece: Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

[Today: A concept-within-a-concept album...]

Hidden deep behind the shiny facade of giant robots, karate and burbling electronic noises is the simple concept at the heart of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots – a concept that many critics have approached without ever precisely articulating. On its surface, The Flaming Lips’ 2002 album is a muddled story about a squadron of Japanese girls fighting invaders who possess artificial intelligence, but thankfully there’s much less to it than that.

The surface story makes for good sci-fi, prog-rock comparisons, and led many a reviewer to proclaim that Yoshimi‘s driving concept was ‘man vs. technology’ ‘synthetic vs. reality’ or practically any other William Gibson/Ray Bradbury plot-line you care to conjure up [choose your fave]. But its true meaning is as clear as the pimple on the end of your nose: this is an album about the confusing journey from childhood into adolescence.

Why all the smoke and mirrors? Put it this way: child-like innocence and rock were separated from one another by punk rock, and finally divorced when grunge went nuclear in the early 90′s. Engagement was replaced by detachment, and in place of wonder we were given irony, lots of it. For all their rhetorical nihilism, the punks were very earnest creatures, but wide-eyed enthusiasm is a stance that just don’t get around much anymore.

Thus Yoshimi covertly addresses many of the fundamental questions that a young person faces as they begin to morph into an adult. The fact that Wayne Coyne tackles them in a voice that’s constantly on the verge of cracking only adds icing to the conceptual cake. When is it okay to stand and fight? How can I hang on to my imagination? Why are feelings so complex? What does love mean? What does death mean? Those are the kind of questions I asked myself a lot between the ages of 10 and 15, and as much as I’d like to claim otherwise, they’re the same things I’m still asking myself, more than two decades later.

Listen: Fight Test

*****

Past Masters
The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds [17 Oct 07]
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here [14 May 07]

On The Fence: Rock ‘N Soul Part 1

Daryl Hall. John Oates. Two men, one aircraft carrier full of hit songs. Their 1983 greatest hits package Rock ‘N Soul Part 1 was a summation of their chart dominance to that point, with five songs that had previously hit Billboard #1. Still and all, is this an album for the iPod, or one that deserves its dusty corner of the collection?

THUMBS UP: Hall & Oates practically define the term guilty pleasure: catchy hooks, mindless lyrics, songs that take you back in time. They owned the airwaves in the early 80′s to the tune of 6 Billboard #1s, earned entry into the songwriters hall of fame, and sold enough records that the Recording Industry Association of America named them the most successful duo in the history of recorded music. And believe it or not, they’ve been sampled by hip-hoppers as diverse as Kanye West and De La Soul – proving that you don’t have to be a square to dig Hall & Oates.

THUMBS DOWN: If the entire recorded works of Daryl Hall and John Oates suddenly disappeared into some kind of music wormhole, would anyone even notice? Rock ‘N Soul Part 1 just might be the sound of one hand clapping – while the other hand rings the cash register as quickly as possible. I like some of their stuff very much, but high chart position doesn’t make tunes like ‘Rich Girl’ ‘Maneater’ or ‘Adult Education’ any more enduring or enjoyable. As of 1983, the Hall & Oates fan club could be reached at (800) 626-9000. Operators are standing by.

[Enquiring minds would like to know what you think of Hall & Oates' Rock & Soul Part 1...]

Album info:

Release date
Fall, 1983

Producers
Various

Label
RCA

Side One
Say It Isn’t So
Sara Smile
She’s Gone
Rich Girl
Kiss On My List
You Make My Dreams
Private Eyes

Side Two
Adult Education
I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)
Maneater
One On One
Wait For Me [live]