Rock 'n' roll never forgets Pt. 12 -- Hall & Oates

Going back through some old music recently I rediscovered Hall & Oates, a band that broke during the mid-'70s and had some legs that carried them for more than a decade.

It was never a stadium, or hockey arena act, but the guys sold a lot of records and did well on the tours it tackled.

They were one of those "blue-eyed soul" bands, a term originally used by R&B guys who took the Righteous Brothers into their musical family back in the '60s.

Daryl Hall fronted the band, Johnny Oates was his writing partner and guitar player. They were always backed by some of the best session players in the business; guys like guitarist G.E. Smith, drummer Jerry Marotta, bass player Kenny Passarelli and a ton of other great players.

I reviewed one of their shows -- a pretty good outing at the old Universal Amphitheatre. It was, then, an outdoor concert theater and the venue publicist always had a big bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies she shared with the rock press when they came to see show.

I saw a lot of good acts under the stars there -- from David Bowie to
 Frank Sinatra. Hall & Oates was one of them.

What I remember most about that show was that the band opened with it's first Top 10 hit, "Sara Smile," which was, as I noted in my review, a pretty gutsy thing to do. Usually, a band will save its biggest hit until the end of its set, sometimes even use it as its first encore.

Not Hall & Oates. The band came out strong and only got better as the set went on.

The audience was an odd mix. Jackson Browne was there, so was Chaka Khan. Pretty diverse. But, so was the show. At that point, Hall & Oates played an eclectic blend of music that although it was rooted in R&B included some rock- and folk-tinged music.

I remember the after-party and the guys being absolutely buzzed because they knew they had nailed it.

Unlike a lot of other acts that get all aloof and rain 'tude on everybody after a particularly good show, these guys were talking to everybody. It was like hanging out instead of paying homage.

Not long after, I interviewed them for a piece I was doing for US magazine. I was freelancing for the then-new magazine and they wanted a different angle on the band. It was something they liked doing with musical acts. Instead of just flat-out, full-length pieces of pretentious pop prose that most magazines were spewing, they wanted to know more about the performers.

So, I end up at the rented Beverly Hills house where the guys were staying in Los Angeles. They were recording a new album "Along the Red Ledge."

I'd talked with some people about the band, but nobody really knew much about them other than that they were pretty good musicians and songwriters.

The basket was empty when I walked in and said "Hello."

We chatted about music -- theirs and other people's. We chatted about touring. We talked about their image -- they had put out an album with a very androgynous cover. We talked about their hometown, Philadelphia. We talked about guitars and instruments. Daryl even went into a back room and came out with a mando-guitar. I had never seen anything like it. The instrument is a short-scale 12-string tuned an octave higher. Basically, the sound is the same as if you put a capo on the 12th fret of a standard 12-string. It had a pickup and a very chimey sound.

Still, no angle.

Then, Johnny Oates started asking me questions. He asked how long I had been writing, what kind of assignments I liked, what kind of assignments I had been given.

I mentioned that as a sportswriter, I covered motor racing and particularly loved Formula One cars.

Their eyes lit up and we went into this great conversation about cars and racing and the different kinds of racing. Turns out they were -- and still are -- big auto racing fans.

Johnny talked about how much he would love to slip behind the wheel of a race car, if only to do a few laps around the track. I told him about the Bob Bondurant school in the Bay Area and how he could go have some fun there with Formula Vee cars. "Too many drugs. My reactions would be too slow," he said.

But, I found my angle. We went on for a good hour talking about Formula One, Indy, NASCAR, drag racing.

These were a couple of very nice guys, very talented and hard-working guys. Later in their career, they revealed a sense of humor, doing a send-up of themselves on TV, allowing some parodies of their music videos. A lot of musicians would have said, "I Can't Go For That."

Not these guys. They always had a pretty good handle on who they are and what they are without flashing ego all over the place. That's a rarity in the music business.