Rock 'n Soul giants
Hall & Oates have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and not a moment too soon. In fact, the rock and pop duo is probably too good for enshrinement. The Hall itself (the museum in Cleveland, that is, not Daryl) is an uptight, bourgeois institution that’s utter existence contradicts what rock and roll music claims to be. (What’s up with having a black tie event and concert only for VIPs as the annual Hall induction ceremony? Even stuffy Major League Baseball knows that you have to open up an induction party to as many fans as the open air allows.) But then this is a jazz man talking. What I know for sure is that the true history of rock and roll music is basically, as many others have already assessed, a tale of white appropriation of African-American blues music, “gutbucket” rhythm and blues packaged for kiddie consumption in suburban pockets of white privilege.
It’s not-at-all-surprising that Hall and Oates would be considered uncool by so many children of the 1990s when it was this decade that witnessed the culmination of the process that punk began, the total and final severing of industry-categorized “rock and roll” music from its original African-American audience. Today, if you are at a “rock” concert, you are no doubt surrounded by white faces, including the ones on stage, whereas mixed-race audiences will be found enjoying live performances by mixed-race artists in the genres of pop, R&B, hip-hop, dance, and yes, still even jazz. The grunge melodies first given to us by H&O’s fellow 2014 inductees, Nirvana, may have brought rock a new sound in the last decade of the century, but their music was always for the ofays only. It grew from the branch of the rock tree that was always less Clarksdale than London, and less dancing than standing and frowning.
The punk and grunge crowds were bound to rebel against a neo-soul duo that rolled off the same phunky streets of Philly that had given the world Eddie Kendricks, the O'Jays, the Delfonics, Patti LaBelle, Teddy Pendergrass, Harold Melvin, Billy Paul, and the Spinners. It would not be coincidental when Daryl and John’s un-tortured band, with its effortless and confident grooves, fell out of favor at exactly the same time they took their act to the Apollo Theater and teamed with their heroes, the Temptations.
Daryl and John typically get thrown in with other 1980s chart-topping white bands, which happen to be mostly acts of artless tune-age like Journey and REO Speedwagon. But the Tom Joyner Morning Show on radio still belts out H&O throw-backs like “I Can’t Go For That” and “One on One” for eager urban audiences, and Tom isn’t playing them between other “oldies” by H&O’s contemporaries, he’s spinning ‘em between brand new hits by Anthony Hamilton and Jill Scott.
Hall & Oates were fearsome forerunners of the popular tunes that followed in the wake of their most listened to albums. A newly-racially-conscious Les Nessman once said, “Scratch an Allman Brother, and you have Chuck Berry.” And if you scratch your “Billie Jean” recording, you hear “I Can’t Go For That.” Hall & Oates were immensely successful in their day, and they are, today, the best-selling musical duo of all time. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has a little more credibility for their presence. Now, next correction, Chicago...
posted by CM @ 2:52 PM
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