Corona Vinyl Day 36 (Duo): Daryl Hall & John Oates by Hall & Oates

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Today's CoronaVinyl is duo, and I can't think of any better duo to showcase than the most successful duo in popular music history, Hall & Oates.  They are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.  Over their nearly 50-year career, they have released 18 studio albums.  Including live albums and compilations, they have 8 platinum albums in the U.S. and 6 gold albums, but really their strength and success was in their singles, not their albums.  While Hall & Oates only had three studio albums reach the Top 5 on the Billboard album charts -- 1981's Private Eyes (#5), 1982's H20 (#3), and 1984's Big Bam Boom (#5) -- they have had 29 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including 16 Top 10s and 6 #1s.  On the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, they have had 34 Top 40 hits, including 14 Top 10s and 2 #1s.

I only have two of their albums on vinyl, and both are very early in their career -- their second album, 1973's Abandoned Luncheonette, and their self-titled 1975 fourth album.  I had to go with the fourth album because of its ridiculous album cover.  Sometimes referred to as "the Silver Album," as you can see, the cover is entirely silver and black and, for some reason, Darryl Hall and John Oates are completely glammed up.  When you learn that the cover was designed by Pierre LaRoche -- the man who came up with Ziggy Stardust for David Bowie -- it makes a little more sense.  Except Hall & Oates did not play glam rock.  Many years later, Daryl Hall jokingly quipped that, on the album cover, he looked like "the girl I always wanted to go out with."  Meanwhile, John Oates looks like a mime.

The album was the group's highest-charting at that time, rising to #17 on the Billboard album chart.  They were still five years away from the massive success they would have in the '80s, where all but one of their 22 singles they released in the U.S. reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, but and you can hear Hall & Oates finding their sound -- a mix of pop, blue-eyed Philadelphia soul, and soft rock.  The album featured their first Top 40 (and Top 10) hit in the U.S., "Sara Smile," which hit #4, and was enough of a hit that the group re-released "She's Gone" from 1973's Abandoned Luncheonette as a single, and it hit #7 (after only getting to #60 when it was originally released).

Oddly, the song order on the back of the album cover is not the same as the song order on the album itself, which is confusing for me, since I usually prop up the back of the album cover next to me while I'm listening to an album in order to figure out what song is playing, as I have not yet figured out a way to spin my head at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Camellia"
The first track on the album features Oates on lead vocals, which became rarer as time went on.  The song is a lovely and catchy '70s pop song that makes me want to write a sitcom named Camellia set in mid-'70s Atlanta, just so I can use this as the theme song.  Josh Radnor stars as the lovelorn Ted Mosby, Sr., searching for a girl he met one night while watching some live music at the Paradise Tropical Moon Club.  There was an instant attraction, and he thought he might even be in love with her even though they only talked for an hour or so, but then she had to abruptly leave before he could get her number.  She left him with only a name.  Camellia.  Telly Savalas -- were he not dead for 26 years -- would play Sal, the grizzled but sage bartender.  Andre Benjamin would play Freddy, Ted's best friend and the triangle player and lead singer in Sensei Freddy and The Kung Fu Five, the Paradise Tropical Moon's karate-themed house band.  Without his glasses, he's nearly blind.  Rhea Pearlman would play the wildly inappropriate and overly horny middle-aged Judy Gumb, who co-owns the Paradise Tropical Moon Club with her ex-husband Dirk, played masterfully by Fred Willard.  She can't stand Dirk ("Dirk the jerk," she calls him) -- even though he's always trying to win her back -- but boy does she have the hots for Freddy.  She's always purposely stealing Freddy's glasses and then goosing him when he's comically looking for his glasses, prompting him to say, "Judy, get your hands off my booty!"  Will Dirk ever win Judy back?  Will Freddy ever sue Judy for constant blatant sexual harassment?  Will Ted ever reconnect with Camellia?  Tune into CBS Fridays at 8 Eastern / 7 Central to find out!

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Gino (The Manager)"
This song is about the group's then-manager -- and future head of Sony Music, pop music mogul, and short-lived Mariah Carey spouse -- Tommy Mottola.  He'll have a cameo in Camellia as a record company A&R man who comes to the Paradise Tropical Moon Club to scout Sensei Freddy and The Kung Fu Five and maybe even sign them to a record deal.  Or so he says.  Sal is immediately suspicious, but will Freddy be too blinded by potential fame to listen to Sal's advice?  Tune into CBS Fridays at 8 Eastern / 7 Central to find out!