Post by erik on Sept 21, 2022 8:28:35 GMT -5
The most successful duo of the rock and roll era, Daryl Hall and John Oates, are in this edition of the Pop Music Hits Spotlight with one of their lesser known hits from that twilight zone where the 1970's became the 1980's.
WAIT FOR ME (Daryl Hall and John Oates; RCA; 1979)—Though they initially came together as a folk-pop duo in Philadelphia at the end of the 1960’s, Daryl Hall and his partner John Oates eventually settled on an R&B-influenced pop-rock sound redolent of their native city; and over the next twenty years, they had an unbelievable amount of success that made them the most successful duo of any kind during the rock and roll era, surpassing the Everly Brothers and Simon and Garfunkel. Though success came slowly to them, by 1976, they had settled into a good grove with the R&B ballad “Sara Smile” in the spring of 1976, followed by a re-release of their initially minor 1974 hit “She’s Gone”, which had peaked at #60 initially, but then peaked at #7 upon its re-release. Their first #1 hit came in April 1977 with “Rich Girl”. For the next two and a half years, their career stalled because of the emergence of disco and new wave, as well as arena rock. But then in 1979, they made one further push towards mega-stardom with their album X-Static, which peaked at #33 on Billboard’s Top 200 Album Chart. The biggest hit to come from that album was a classic R&B vocal ballad entitled “Wait For Me”, which Hall himself had written. Both the album and the song were produced by Canadian-born keyboardist David Foster, who would have unbelievable success of his own in the producer’s chair during the 1980’s and 1990’s with artists like Chicago, Celine Dion, and Whitney Houston, among many others. Released as a single in late November 1979, “Wait For Me” managed to cut through the continuing dominance of disco, new wave, and arena rock and reach #18 on the Hot 100 for the week ending January 26, 1980. Hall and Oates would continue with massive #1 hits like “Private Eyes”, “I Can’t Go For That”, and “Maneater” in the 1980’s, thus ensuring, even if rather belatedly, that they would be enshrined in immortality in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.
WAIT FOR ME (Daryl Hall and John Oates; RCA; 1979)—Though they initially came together as a folk-pop duo in Philadelphia at the end of the 1960’s, Daryl Hall and his partner John Oates eventually settled on an R&B-influenced pop-rock sound redolent of their native city; and over the next twenty years, they had an unbelievable amount of success that made them the most successful duo of any kind during the rock and roll era, surpassing the Everly Brothers and Simon and Garfunkel. Though success came slowly to them, by 1976, they had settled into a good grove with the R&B ballad “Sara Smile” in the spring of 1976, followed by a re-release of their initially minor 1974 hit “She’s Gone”, which had peaked at #60 initially, but then peaked at #7 upon its re-release. Their first #1 hit came in April 1977 with “Rich Girl”. For the next two and a half years, their career stalled because of the emergence of disco and new wave, as well as arena rock. But then in 1979, they made one further push towards mega-stardom with their album X-Static, which peaked at #33 on Billboard’s Top 200 Album Chart. The biggest hit to come from that album was a classic R&B vocal ballad entitled “Wait For Me”, which Hall himself had written. Both the album and the song were produced by Canadian-born keyboardist David Foster, who would have unbelievable success of his own in the producer’s chair during the 1980’s and 1990’s with artists like Chicago, Celine Dion, and Whitney Houston, among many others. Released as a single in late November 1979, “Wait For Me” managed to cut through the continuing dominance of disco, new wave, and arena rock and reach #18 on the Hot 100 for the week ending January 26, 1980. Hall and Oates would continue with massive #1 hits like “Private Eyes”, “I Can’t Go For That”, and “Maneater” in the 1980’s, thus ensuring, even if rather belatedly, that they would be enshrined in immortality in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.